It’s not just a minister’s problem. It’s not just a police problem. It’s not just one mom’s problem.
Wilbur Brown knows about problems.
"It's a community problem," he said.
His road has taken him on both sides of violence. When he was younger, Brown spent 16 years in prison for stabbing a man to death.
"I got into a street fight," he said. "I got into a street fight that I regret. I feel remorse every single day. I didn’t get up in the morning and say I was going to go out, you know what I’m saying, 'Oh, I think I’ll go stab somebody.' Those two dudes was beating me, and we got into a fight. And where I’m from – I’ve been on my own since I was 15 years old – and where I’m from, you get in a fight, you win."
Now, Brown is trying to win a much different fight. From 9 to 5, he’s an environmental health inspector for the city of Boston. By night he’s helping people like himself who have been behind bars – people he describes as being in the underground.
"I was going to check you out tomorrow, you know," Brown told a man named Emanuel at a weekly meeting.
"I’m doing bad, son," Emanuel replied.
On this Monday evening, inside a neighborhood center in Dorchester’s Grove Hall, Brown leads one of two weekly group meetings he puts together. About a half dozen others join him around a conference table laid out with bologna, cookies and lemonade. At one end are two men with 20 years of prison time between them. To the side is a mother of three, and another woman who lives not far from a triple murder that had just happened in Grove Hall over the weekend. At the other end of the table is Brown, and sitting next to him is Emanuel, whose best friend was killed the previous week.
"I’m doing bad," Emanuel said.
"OK," Brown said. "Tell us about it."
"Not good," Emanuel said. "Doing bad. Going down the wrong path again."
Emanuel doesn’t open up about that wrong path, but just as important, he stays.
"You can numb yourself, but it’s still there, and it comes out in other ways; whether people overindulge in alcohol, whether they overeat, it comes out in other ways," Brown said.
At the other end of the table is David Long.
"My past couple weeks have been so stressed out and so crazy," Long said.
Long is a former gang member. Finding a full-time job has been a struggle.
"All last week, every single day, from Sunday to Sunday, I was wasted," he said. "I was turned up, every night. Like, man, I just don’t even wanna deal with this madness right now. It gets like that sometimes."
Long works security on occasion at a downtown bar, but only earns enough to give his brother $20 when he can. He’s living with his brother, trying to make a new life.
"I went to prison when I was 20 years old," Long said. "I didn’t get out till I was almost 29, and I can’t get nothing right now, even though I haven’t been in any trouble. I haven’t been in any trouble in almost four years. I can’t get nothing. Like, I can’t even get housing right now."
Long has lost both family and close friends to violence. He says at the time his mindset was retaliation, which is what put him in prison. Yet on this day, it’s not violence or a lack of work that was almost the trigger for Long. Instead, it’s being rejected by his daughters at their middle school graduation.
"They treated me like a stranger," he said. "They just have they backs to me. I’m tapping their shoulders and they just got their backs to me. I try to spin them around and give them a hug, and they’re like … so I’m like, 'Word, that’s how you’re gonna treat me? You got it.' I had to just walk away. And then I walked away and I was so hurt and devastated I didn’t know whether to spazz out or to cry."
Long went a different route. He reached out to friends and family to talk to. Brown tells him it was a powerful choice.
"You called me," Brown told him. "You called our therapist in our group. You called your sister. You called about four or five people, and you made it through. You’re here right now. Some people are in the hospital as a result of those deep feelings like that."
Creating a haven for those those deep feelings is what meetings like this are all about; the type of place where David and others who have served time can talk about their traumas and fears.
"When people transition out, people are kind of lost in time," Brown said. "People that they’re coming to don’t really know how to address those issues after someone spends time in prison."
It’s issues that Emanuel and Long have no problem sharing. Like Brown, they were forced to grow up at an early age.
"When I was young, I sold drugs - like a young age, you know," Emanuel said. "But it felt good, cause the lights went on, you know what I mean. Everybody had cereal. It’s bad to start so young. Then you’re making money and going to school becomes less important, and running the streets became more important."
"My moms had to grind out all by herself and she had two sick sons," Long said. "But she struggled and she went hard to make sure we was okay. I’m the knucklehead who messed up, you know what I’m saying. But that was because it was my choice. My moms, she taught us the right stuff. I just didn’t realize it until it was too late."
Long is even more frank about his current issues. In particular, finding the resources to build a new life.
"You know how you said that’s how the system is designed," Long said. "The system is designed to make you think that everybody is getting it, and you’re not. I don’t think it. I know it. I see it. I live it firsthand. So my question is what resources do I utilize to make that change, or to start to make that change?"
"You change it right here right here, right now," Brown said. "You start to change your mind and change how people define you."
"It could be the littlest thing you don’t even notice it," Emanuel said. "Like you said, the other day, you went through the stuff with your kids. But the way that happened, you didn’t react the way you really wanted to react. You gotta find a way to cool yourself off."
Long doesn’t let up though. He explains that his main concern isn’t what will happen months, or even years from now, but something that may trigger a setback as soon as the next morning.
"All it takes is any given moment, any day, right,?" he said. "My brother could wake up and go through some hardships. He could wake up in a bad mood and say, 'You know what? Leave.' Then where am I?"
It’s a road Brown and many others have walked. So his tough love comes from that shared experience.
"You’re on your way, right now, of being independent," Brown said. "First of all, you’re not in jail – you didn’t slap nobody when you could fry an egg on your head today. Do you see what I’m saying? You’re not in jail. Nobody’s in the hospital. You don’t have any restraining orders on you. Do you see what I’m saying? You’re on your way."
After two hours, the meeting is over. Bursts of lightning and thunder greet the group as they linger outside. Yet for Long and Emanuel, it’s not quite as dark. They say they felt a little better being able to share what they were going through. It’s helping them through the moment, through the day that Brown says is how they and others can begin to rise from the underground.
