Download or read book Redemption written by Anne Mahon and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword by Greg Boyle, S.J., founder of Homeboy IndustriesWhy do people join gangs? Once entrenched in a life of crime with its realities of incarceration, addiction, power, and money, is it possible to ever walk away? This triumphant collection of ten personal life stories from ex-gang members enlightens, surprises and inspires. These first-person accounts illuminate the harsh reality of living as a marginalized person, often neglected and in poverty. Unexpectedly, their stories share heartfelt commentary on topics such as peace, joy, forgiveness and hope. Readers will be challenged to question their preconceived notions as they are given an illuminating look at individual lives behind crime statistics. This book covers territory that often doesn't get into the news media and creates connection through our shared humanity.
Download or read book Rondu s Redemption written by Daniel Duong and published by Daniel Duong. This book was released on 2024-08-09 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Rondu's Redemption" is the sequel to "Kodo: The Revolution," set in a chaotic world dominated by gang warfare, three years after Kodo's death. Following Kodo's demise, the world has devolved into a brutal landscape of gang conflicts and power struggles. This tale follows Rondu, the son of the infamous Ruta, as he navigates this violent world, seeking vengeance and redemption.
Download or read book All Eyes On Me written by Kevin Zdrill and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2020-08-28 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drugs, gangs, crime, doing time. Vincent Lillie desperately wanted to escape the cycle that was slowly killing him, and the first step was leaving the very gang he had depended on for love and acceptance. The price for escape? A beating so brutal, many don’t survive. The story of Vincent’s life starts with the destruction of his family at the hands of his father’s sexual abuse, worsens with his school’s discriminatory segregation of him, and deteriorates further with every drug he does, every crime he commits, and each of his incarcerations. With his three brothers stuck in the same cycle, Vincent’s lowest point of addiction came to attempted suicide—twice. But fate had other plans for him. At times heartbreaking and at others breathtaking, Vincent’s true story will give you faith in humanity and prove the strength of the human spirit. His slow but steady road to recovery through sheer willpower and determination led him to become a mentor and speaker, motivating kids and adults to become the best version of themselves, and stopping those who are troubled from following in his footsteps. His is an unforgettable story of burning to ashes and rising from them better than ever before—one step at a time. A raw and honest memoir that will give you hope. FOREWORD BY MITCH BOURBONNIERE, Director of Service, Ogijiita Pimatiswin Kinamatwin (OPK), working with Winnipeg’s most vulnerable people who suffer with homelessness, post traumatic stress, addiction, mental health issues, domestic violence, gang involvement, and sexual exploitation.
Download or read book Barking to the Choir written by Greg Boyle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries traces his experiences of working with gangs in Los Angeles for three decades, sharing what his efforts have taught him about faith, compassion, and the enduring power of radical kinship.
Download or read book Tattoos on the Heart written by Greg Boyle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you fight despair and learn to meet the world with a loving heart? How do you overcome shame? Stay faithful in spite of failure? No matter where people live or what their circumstances may be, everyone needs boundless, restorative love. Gorgeous and uplifting, Tattoos on the Heart amply demonstrates the impact unconditional love can have on your life. As a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of murderous gang activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an organization to provide jobs, job training, and encouragement so that young people could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes from collaboration. Tattoos on the Heart is a breathtaking series of parables distilled from his twenty years in the barrio. Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives could be if we could find the joy in loving others and in being loved unconditionally. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JCPenney fresh out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God’s love. From ten-year-old Lula we learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Pedro we understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the darkness. In each chapter we benefit from Boyle’s wonderful, hard-earned wisdom. Inspired by faith but applicable to anyone trying to be good, these personal, unflinching stories are full of surprising revelations and observations of the community in which Boyle works and of the many lives he has helped save. Erudite, down-to-earth, and utterly heartening, these essays about universal kinship and redemption are moving examples of the power of unconditional love in difficult times and the importance of fighting despair. With Gregory Boyle’s guidance, we can recognize our own wounds in the broken lives and daunting struggles of the men and women in these parables and learn to find joy in all of the people around us. Tattoos on the Heart reminds us that no life is less valuable than another.
Download or read book To Hell and Back written by Joe Calendino and published by L&c Press. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An autobiography of Joe Calendino, a former Hell's Angel, that recounts his rock bottom days and road to recovery.
Download or read book City Form and Everyday Life written by Jon Caulfield and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews among a segment of Toronto's inner-city, middle-class population, Caulfield argues that the seeds of gentrification have included patterns of critical social practice and that the 'gentrified' landscape is highly paradoxical.
Download or read book Transformed written by Remi Adeleke and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would it take for one young Black man not only to rise above statistics but also become a Navy SEAL, actor, entrepreneur, writer, and successful husband and father? In Transformed, Remi Adeleke takes you back to stories from his childhood, from living as Nigerian royalty to losing his father early in life and being stripped financially of everything by the Nigerian government. Following his father’s death, he and his mother and brother relocated permanently to the Bronx where his single mother struggled to provide for the family. Statistics tell us that African American males who grow up in a single-parent household are nine times more likely to drop out of high school and twenty times more likely to end up in prison than any other demographic. While it would have been easy to believe that he could never beat those odds, Remi Adeleke refused to fall victim to that premise. Sharing his incredible journey through the struggles of his life, Remi doesn’t shy away from his illegal activities as a young man that threatened to derail his future as a Navy SEAL. He shares: How perseverance transformed his life despite all odds How taking ownership of his mistakes and shortcomings led him to success His hard-earned wisdom gained over years of struggle Belief that the adversities, trials, and tribulations he went through were specific moves by God At every turn, including throughout his naval career, Adeleke found a way to overcome the odds, even when it didn’t make sense. Remi Adeleke’s journey of following God’s voice, rising above statistics, and experiencing true personal transformation will inspire and move you.
Download or read book A Most Beautiful Thing written by Arshay Cooper and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: REGIONAL BESTSELLER Now a documentary narrated by Common, produced by Grant Hill, Dwyane Wade, and 9th Wonder, from filmmaker Mary Mazzio The moving true story of a group of young men growing up on Chicago's West side who form the first all-Black high school rowing team in the nation, and in doing so not only transform a sport, but their lives. Growing up on Chicago’s Westside in the 90’s, Arshay Cooper knows the harder side of life. The street corners are full of gangs, the hallways of his apartment complex are haunted by drug addicts he calls “zombies” with strung out arms, clutching at him as he passes by. His mother is a recovering addict, and his three siblings all sleep in a one room apartment, a small infantry against the war zone on the street below. Arshay keeps to himself, preferring to write poetry about the girl he has a crush on, and spends his school days in the home-ec kitchen dreaming of becoming a chef. And then one day as he’s walking out of school he notices a boat in the school lunchroom, and a poster that reads “Join the Crew Team”. Having no idea what the sport of crew is, Arshay decides to take a chance. This decision to join is one that will forever change his life, and those of his fellow teammates. As Arshay and his teammates begin to come together to learn how to row--many never having been in water before--the sport takes them from the mean streets of Chicago, to the hallowed halls of the Ivy League. But Arshay and his teammates face adversity at every turn, from racism, gang violence, and a sport that has never seen anyone like them before. A Most Beautiful Thing is the inspiring true story about the most unlikely band of brothers that form a family, and forever change a sport and their lives for the better.
Download or read book Iron Heart written by Brian Boyle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was a horrific car crash. On the way home from swim practice, eighteen-year old Brian Boyle’s future changed in an instant when a dump truck plowed into his Camaro. He was airlifted to a shock-trauma hospital. He had lost sixty percent of his blood, his heart had moved across his chest, and his organs and pelvis were pulverized. He was placed in a medically-induced coma. When Brian finally emerged from the coma two months later, he had no memory of the accident. He could see and hear, but not move or talk. Unable to communicate to his doctors, nurses, or frantic parents, he heard words like “vegetable” and “nursing home.” If he lived, doctors predicted he might not be able to walk again, and certainly not swim. Then, miraculously, Brian clawed his way back to the living. First blinking his eyelids, then squeezing a hand, then smiling, he gradually emerged from his locked-in state. The former swimmer and bodybuilder had lost one hundred pounds. Iron Heart is the first-person account of his ordeal and his miraculous comeback. With enormous fortitude he learned to walk, then run, and eventually, to swim. With his dream of competing in the Ironman Triathlon spurring him on, Brian defied all odds, and three-and-a-half years after his accident, crossed the finish line in Kona, Hawaii. Brian’s inspiring journey from coma to Kona is brought to life in this memoir.
Download or read book The Lucky Ones written by Anne Mahon and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of stories from African refugees living in Manitoba.
Download or read book Redeeming Justice written by Jarrett Adams and published by Convergent Books. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A moving and beautifully crafted memoir.”—SCOTT TUROW “A daring act of justified defiance.”—SHAKA SENGHOR “Nothing less than heroic.”—JOHN GRISHAM He was seventeen when an all-white jury sentenced him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now a pioneering lawyer, he recalls the journey that led to his exoneration—and inspired him to devote his life to fighting the many injustices in our legal system. Seventeen years old and facing nearly thirty years behind bars, Jarrett Adams sought to figure out the why behind his fate. Sustained by his mother and aunts who brought him back from the edge of despair through letters of prayer and encouragement, Adams became obsessed with our legal system in all its damaged glory. After studying how his constitutional rights to effective counsel had been violated, he solicited the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, an organization that exonerates the wrongfully convicted, and won his release after nearly ten years in prison. But the journey was far from over. Adams took the lessons he learned through his incarceration and worked his way through law school with the goal of helping those who, like himself, had faced our legal system at its worst. After earning his law degree, he worked with the New York Innocence Project, becoming the first exoneree ever hired by the nonprofit as a lawyer. In his first case with the Innocence Project, he argued before the same court that had convicted him a decade earlier—and won. In this illuminating story of hope and full-circle redemption, Adams draws on his life and the cases of his clients to show the racist tactics used to convict young men of color, the unique challenges facing exonerees once released, and how the lack of equal representation in our courts is a failure not only of empathy but of our collective ability to uncover the truth. Redeeming Justice is an unforgettable firsthand account of the limits—and possibilities—of our country’s system of law.
Download or read book My Crazy Life written by Mondo De La Vega and published by Charisma Media. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Jesus can change the life of a gangster, what could He do with you? After reading this book, you will have the practical tools needed for developing a deep, fruitful relationship with God. You will have the encouragement you need to see that Jesus is real and fully present in whatever circumstances you face. Discover the astonishing journey of Mondo De La Vega in My Crazy Life: The Moments That Brought a Gangster to Grace. Step into a world where respect, power, and money lure a young man into the dark embrace of one of Los Angeles' most notorious Latino gangs. But behind the facade lies a haunting reality of crime, guns, and the constant threat of death or imprisonment. Mondo's life takes root in a turbulent childhood, filled with abuse and violence. Escaping his reproachful father in Central America, he, along with his sister and mother, seeks refuge in families' homes, moving around from place to place in a small town in Central America, surviving undercover for over a year before their ultimate quest for freedom leads them to the brutal streets of Los Angeles. Driven by bitterness and anger, Mondo is pulled into one of the city's most notorious gangs, climbing its ranks and facing an inevitable future of either imprisonment or an early grave. Yet amidst the darkness, Mondo's sister refuses to give up on him. With unyielding faith, she prays for a miracle and receives a prophetic word that seems impossible to Mondo--a word that will change everything. My Crazy Life is a gripping narrative much like the story of Nicky Cruz, as we see God interrupt Mondo's path with His relentless love and grace. Through supernatural encounters, miraculous escapes, and undeniable fulfilled prophecies, Mondo finds the strength to leave the gang behind and embrace a new life.
Download or read book Unforgetting written by Roberto Lovato and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An LA Times Best Book of the Year • A New York Times Editors' Pick • A Newsweek 25 Best Fall Books • A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year "Gripping and beautiful. With the artistry of a poet and the intensity of a revolutionary, Lovato untangles the tightly knit skein of love and terror that connects El Salvador and the United States." —Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Natural Causes and Nickel and Dimed An urgent, no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare, intergenerational trauma, and interconnected violence between the United States and El Salvador, Roberto Lovato’s memoir excavates family history and reveals the intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence and mass Central American migration, one of the most important, yet least-understood humanitarian crises of our time—and one in which the perspectives of Central Americans in the United States have been silenced and forgotten. The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s and 80s San Francisco as MS-13 and other notorious Salvadoran gangs were forming in California. In his teens, he lost friends to the escalating violence, and survived acts of brutality himself. He eventually traded the violence of the streets for human rights advocacy in wartime El Salvador where he joined the guerilla movement against the U.S.-backed, fascist military government responsible for some of the most barbaric massacres and crimes against humanity in recent history. Roberto returned from war-torn El Salvador to find the United States on the verge of unprecedented crises of its own. There, he channeled his own pain into activism and journalism, focusing his attention on how trauma affects individual lives and societies, and began the difficult journey of confronting the roots of his own trauma. As a child, Roberto endured a tumultuous relationship with his father Ramón. Raised in extreme poverty in the countryside of El Salvador during one of the most violent periods of its history, Ramón learned to survive by straddling intersecting underworlds of family secrets, traumatic silences, and dealing in black-market goods and guns. The repression of the violence in his life took its toll, however. Ramón was plagued with silences and fits of anger that had a profound impact on his youngest son, and which Roberto attributes as a source of constant reckoning with the violence and rebellion in his own life. In Unforgetting, Roberto interweaves his father’s complicated history and his own with first-hand reportage on gang life, state violence, and the heart of the immigration crisis in both El Salvador and the United States. In doing so he makes the political personal, revealing the cyclical ways violence operates in our homes and our societies, as well as the ways hope and tenderness can rise up out of the darkness if we are courageous enough to unforget.
Download or read book Project Fatherhood written by Jorja Leap and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A group of former gang members come together to help one another answer the question “How can I be a good father when I’ve never had one?” In 2010, former gang leader turned community activist Big Mike Cummings asked UCLA gang expert Jorja Leap to co-lead a group of men struggling to be better fathers in Watts, South Los Angeles, a neighborhood long burdened with a legacy of racialized poverty, violence, and incarceration. These men, black and brown, from late adolescence to middle age, are trying to heal themselves and their community, and above all to build their identities as fathers. Each week, they come together to help one another answer the question “How can I be a good father when I’ve never had one?” Project Fatherhood follows the lives of the men as they struggle with the pain of their own losses, the chronic pressures of poverty and unemployment, and the unquenchable desire to do better and provide more for the next generation. Although the group begins as a forum for them to discuss issues relating to their roles as parents, it slowly grows to mean much more: it becomes a place where they can share jokes and traumatic experiences, joys and sorrows. As the men repair their own lives and gain confidence, the group also becomes a place for them to plan and carry out activities to help the Watts community grow as well as thrive. By immersing herself in the lived experiences of those working to overcome their circumstances, Leap not only dramatically illustrates the realities of fathers trying to do the right thing, but she also paints a larger sociological portrait of how institutional injustices become manifest in the lives of ordinary people. At a time in which racial justice seems more elusive than ever—stymied by the generational cycles of mass incarceration and the cradle-to-prison pipeline—the group’s development over time demonstrates real-life movement toward solutions as the men help one another make their families and their community stronger.
Download or read book Gang Leader for a Day written by Sudhir Venkatesh and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-01-10 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller "A rich portrait of the urban poor, drawn not from statistics but from vivid tales of their lives and his, and how they intertwined." —The Economist "A sensitive, sympathetic, unpatronizing portrayal of lives that are ususally ignored or lumped into ill-defined stereotype." —Finanical Times Foreword by Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics When first-year graduate student Sudhir Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago’s most notorious housing projects, he hoped to find a few people willing to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty--and impress his professors with his boldness. He never imagined that as a result of this assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade embedded inside the projects under JT’s protection. From a privileged position of unprecedented access, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of his gang as they operated their crack-selling business, made peace with their neighbors, evaded the law, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang’s complex hierarchical structure. Examining the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, and often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone, Gang Leader for a Day also tells the story of the complicated friendship that develops between Venkatesh and JT--two young and ambitious men a universe apart. Sudhir Venkatesh’s latest book Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York’s Underground Economy—a memoir of sociological investigation revealing the true face of America’s most diverse city—is also published by Penguin Press.
Download or read book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace written by Jeff Hobbs and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-23 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of a young African-American man who escaped the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets when he returned home.
