A Redemptive Path Forward
From Incarceration to a Life of Activism
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A motivational memoir by a formerly incarcerated man who transformed from founder and leader of the Dallas Bloods to a practitioner of peace and nonviolence in the neighborhood he once helped destroy
As a child of an incarcerated father, Antong Lucky grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhood in East Dallas, Texas, born at the same time as East Dallas experienced an alarming rise in crack cocaine and heroin use. Despite his high grades and passion for learning, Antong is introduced to gang life and its consequences.
Eventually, Antong forms the Dallas Bloods gang, inaugurating a period in the 1990s of escalating retaliatory gun violence buoyed by a lucrative illegal drug enterprise until he is ultimately arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. His journey through the doors of transformation came through the pain of incarceration and introspection that caused him to question the cognitive distortions embedded in him since childhood.
Once in prison, Antong denounced his gang affiliation and began working to unite rival gangs, quickly rising to become one of the most respected and sought-after mentors in prison. A spiritual transformation further inspired Antong to return to his old neighborhood after early release, seeking to align with like-minded people dedicated to challenging systemic issues in U.S. communities through collective efforts. The work of an incisive, determined mind, A Redemptive Path Forward will take its place among the broadening canon of titles championing and investigating prison reform and societal transformation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Activist Lucky debuts with a harrowing as well as hopeful account of how he turned his life around after founding the Dallas Bloods gang and surviving a stint in prison. Beginning with his 1980s childhood in East Dallas, Tex., Lucky recounts how growing up in a housing project "filled with drugs, alcohol, and violence" led to his hustling drugs as a teen, and to his establishing a Dallas chapter of the Bloods gang in 1993. At 20, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for drug possession. Recalling the "dismally reliable pattern in these courtroom dramas," he writes, "a Black kid was charged, a white expert was brought in to explain how the drug world worked, an all-white jury listened and deliberated, and... they passed down a guilty verdict." Fortunately for Lucky, several transformative encounters in prison—including with Imam Willie Fareed Fleming, who helped Lucky parlay his leadership skills into influencing fellow inmates to do good—led to his early release and a role with a nonprofit devoted to eliminating urban violence. While the redemption arc is immensely moving, it's the unflinching way Lucky calls out systemic inequality—and the welcome corrective he offers to dehumanizing portrayals of those disproportionately affected by it—that cuts to the core. This should be required reading.
