So no matter how much my grandmother preached to us about Jesus Christ
so it was time for me to step up. I became a troubleshooter and then
and going to school and getting an education, all that was self-defeated
a manager for BP Oil. They wanted to send me back to school, to finish
once we got out in the streets with that peer pressure. My brothers and I
getting my education so they could put me in a supervisor position. In the
all belonged to a gang.
late seventies, I was making $20,000 a year. That was great money. It was
I started drinking when my mom and pop would have their little
just that I wanted more. Opportunity came when cocaine hit the street. I
weekend fiascos and leave all the half-empty bottles lying around. The
was off and running. I saw poor folks become millionaires overnight. I met
first kind of trouble I got myself into was when I stole some money from
this other young lady and we had a son, so then I had two families. I was
my grandmother’s pocketbook. I got a beating. Back then, the kind of
already using cocaine casually—I was a weekend warrior. I started selling a
whippings we endured would be considered child abuse today. My pop
little and then I became one of my best customers. Everything was going
was a hard-core guy, and the harder he got, the harder we got. So, that
in my nose or in the pipe. The mother of my son left and my wife eventually
punishment didn’t help. It just made me want to be tougher.
kicked me to the curb.
I found out early stealing wasn’t really my forte. I didn’t like it.
Before I left BP, I robbed them and used some of the money to put
I’d rather go out and do people’s backyards or run to the store for the
myself in a rehab for three months. When I came out I took what I had left
neighbors. I created little jobs for myself throughout the neighborhood. I’d
and I started to build my empire. I became a major drug dealer. I went right
get ten cents to do an errand, and in those days that was a lot of money.
back to using. I had about an eight-year run before I finally got busted in
With a quarter you were a millionaire.
1987. I did twelve years. I couldn’t adapt to authority in prison, so, the first two years of my incarceration I spun a hole in solitary confinement. Through all my drug dealings, I brought my family in and they got
“I’m the guy that goes into all the areas of the city that other people are scared to go into—the threatening, high-crime, drug-infested neighborhoods. People often ask me why I do it. I say, ‘Because somebody has to.’”
involved with my business as well. I’d especially taken my little brother underneath my wing because he was having problems with my pop, and I knew what that was like. So he’d been living with me and working for me. He ended up turning state’s evidence and testified against me. I wanted to kill my brother because in street law the worst thing you can do is rat out your flesh and blood. When I finally got released they sent me to a halfway house. I was older; I had some health issues. I didn’t want to come back out because I didn’t think that I was going to make it. I went right up to my counselor’s office after getting off the bus and said, “I’d like to go back.” She told me if
When I started working, I could buy my brothers a pair of pants or
I continued to stand there, she was going to accommodate me with that.
a new shirt. Things begin to change for us as a family. My mom could rely
One of the monitors put his hands on my shoulder and said, “Mr. Gant,
on me. A lot of mornings we would get up and she didn’t have the proper
come on out here.” He said, “Look, there are some folks around the corner.
food to send us to school with. Some mornings it was just a hot glass of
Go take a walk.” So I did and there was this guy sitting there that had this
tea and some toast. When I was helping, we would have some bologna on
expression on his face like a shining star. Right away I became attracted to
that bread instead of just mayonnaise.
that look. They had a program called End Violence and this gentleman was
I dropped out of high school in eleventh grade. I got my girl pregnant,
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holding conversations with the residents of the halfway house to teach
Raymond Gant