Hood Legends: This Thing We Started

Michael Jourdain recounts how two men’s ideology changed the world, and greatly influenced his life. He would come to know Stanley “Tookie” Williams, founder of the Crips, through his friendship with his sister, Francine, while he was a young teenager. Tookie’s drive to be a powerful leader inspired Michael to start his own crew within the Van Ness Gang.At seventeen, Michael would meet Thomas “Tootie” Reese, the Godfather of black drug kinpins, and was impressed with his tremendous wealth. After he became a member of Tootie’s organization, Michael would have all the money that he had ever dreamed of. But the death of his best friend, Raul, to gang violence, changed the course of his life. He was plotting the murder of Raul’s killer when the government took his freedom.In prison, education changed Michael’s life. He began to understand how his actions and the actions of those he knew and associated with were destroying black neighborhoods, and he became a social activist. His desires changed from wanting to be wealthy by any means necessary to wanting to save underserved neighborhoods from self-destructing, and to help young men and women convert their misguided street ambition into entrepreneurship. Read more