From terror to hope

You can't hand in a resignation. You can't just walk away one day without looking over your shoulder. Some who try to get out end up on the wrong end of a gun, and others leave the city with menacing threats hanging over their heads.

Lane got out eight years ago, and in a way, he did die. He said his gang understood the biblical concept expressed in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation - the old has gone, the new has come!" He said they knew the old Delvin was dead, and they let him go.

In 1999, Lane had been a Gangster Disciple for three years and was the leader of the group. He sold drugs, laundered money, dodged bullets. He held a 15-year-old friend in his arms as the boy died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

He woke up one morning nearly a decade ago and knew his life was not where it should be. He went to see a local preacher, who asked him several pointed questions: "Where would you go if you died right now, heaven or hell? What kind of works do you have in your life? What do you do on a regular basis?"

"My life has been changing ever since," Lane said. "I wondered why I was always the one not getting caught. I was always getting away. I knew my life had a higher purpose. So I sought out the answer, and the answer was Jesus Christ."

He distanced himself from the gang by spreading the word of God, finding honest jobs and getting involved in a nonprofit organization called Streets Ministries.

The facility is located in one of the poorest ZIP codes in the country, 38126, where it is tough to hold a steady job and hard to resist the pull of the streets, according to Lane.

He said that at the heart of poverty is hopelessness and that kids don't see value in family, education, community and ultimately life in such a bleak situation.

"The streets don't sugarcoat things for kids - they suck them in," Lane said. "They just want to be a part of something and have an identity. That's the appeal of gangs."

There are 37 million poor people living in America, nearly 16 million of which are living in deep or severe poverty, according to 2005 census figures. Severe poverty describes an individual who makes less than $5,080 a year or a family of four which makes less than $9,903 a year.

The data also shows that blacks are more than three times as likely as whites to be in severe poverty, and Hispanics are more than twice as likely.

Memphis has a child poverty rate of 30 percent and a low-income rate of 26 percent, according to the City and Rural Kids Count Databook, a report put out by the Annie E. Casey Foundation using 2000 census data.

As poverty rates climb -and they went up by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005 - the more at risk children are those who grow up impoverished.

Researchers have documented for years the correlation between poverty and such things as crime, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, gang activity and poor academic achievement.

"Poverty is general instability," said Margaret Craddock, executive director of the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association (MIFA). "You're less likely to live in a stable home or a safe neighborhood, there's substandard housing, lack of excess to prenatal care and child care and not enough money for food."

Unstable homes and the lack of tightly-knit families can lead to violent crime, according to Chris Craft, a Shelby County Criminal Court judge.

"Although most persons who grow up without a father do not commit crime, the 20 percent who do, commit just about all of the violent crime," he said. Of the roughly 25,000 cases he handled in criminal court last year, only 12 percent of the juveniles involved lived with both parents in the home.

"Men who grow up with a loving father in the home have a genuine respect for authority and are better able to control themselves and look to long-term reward rather than immediate gratification," he said. "Those who grow up without authority or with inconsistent discipline from single moms have low self-esteem and cannot deny themselves anything for the sake of future gain, having no trust that good things will come."

He said girls growing up in fatherless homes tend to have a great need for male relationships but don't receive appropriate male attention. They have low self-esteem and tend to be used by men for sex and criminal activity, such as buying goods with credit cards stolen from women.

These girls tend to become single mothers, and are at risk for giving premature birth and losing their babies due to inadequate health care and lack of education. Many will not celebrate their child's first birthday.

The pall of infant mortality is especially dark over regions of the South. More babies die every year in Memphis than in any other large American city. Eight babies die every week in Mississippi, twice the national average.

"(Children of single parents) tend to become single parents themselves and perpetuate this cycle of illegitimacy, poverty and hopelessness, creating more of the same," Craft said. "(We must) stress in our schools the economic and emotional devastation caused by illegitimacy."

The poverty cycle is a catch-22. The means of escape - good education, financial investment, jobs with upward mobility - are often not available to the poor.

But navigating around the dead ends is not impossible. Even in the most desperate neighborhoods there are signs of progress.

Streets Ministries is one such sign. Its new 34,500-square-foot outreach center at 430 Vance is across the street from the Foote Homes housing project and near Vance Middle School.

With 14 full and part time staff members and many volunteers, the facility offers a game room, gym and computer lab, as well as Bible studies, outreach clubs, summer camps, mentoring systems, a college prep program and between $20,000 and $30,000 in college scholarships every year.

Ken Bennett, a University of Memphis graduate, founded Streets in 1987, when he started conducting Bible studies out of a van and only reached a few ears.

Now hundreds of adolescents come through Streets every day.

"We're a Christian-based outreach organization, but you don't have to hear a sermon," he said. "If all a kid wants to do is play some basketball, that's fine. We're a safe haven, an avenue for kids to be kids."

Delvin Lane first found a haven in Streets eight years ago when he turned away from the gang lifestyle. He went from leading over a hundred gang members to leading over six hundred kids as the new ministry director of Streets.

"I hope kids will see what I've been through and realize that if they make the same bad decisions I made, it could turn out worse for them," he said.

To keep kids out of gangs and out of trouble, they must have hope, Bennett said.

"These kids are grasping for hope, and a big part (of hope) is self-esteem, and a big part (of self-esteem) is success," he said. "If a kid can read and has a personality, they can navigate life successfully."

But it is risky to break out of poverty, he said. People are afraid to take the step. Many have multiple kids to support and can't save money.

"Some parents even discourage their kids from going to school. They want them to be working and making money instead," he said.

And organizations like Streets can only do so much. A child of 12 walking through its doors for the first time is likely to already have drug money in his pockets and a gun in his bedroom.

A child's chances of rising out of poverty start increasing or decreasing from the moment they are conceived, according to Craddock.

"The most important thing society can do is to make (the early years) a priority," she said. "From the time of birth to 3 years old, that should be the best possible environment (for the child)."

She said that parents need to be educated about the importance of early brain development and how to raise kids in a stimulating environment. They also need access to quality health care.

But education isn't only for the poor.

We also need to educate our community leaders and elected officials about the importance of promoting the family unit, according to Craft.

He said laws that keep families apart need to be modified, such as those that promote welfare dependency and those that deny welfare benefits to homes with employed fathers.

Lane said it was wiser financially for his mother to be single, because if she got married, her rent would go from $45 a month to $500.

"Education is the primary key," Craft said. "This is a long-term solution. Unfortunately, there is no short-term solution, and too many of our leaders want to throw money at the problem, when what is needed are caring people who will get involved to help break the cycle."

The Gangster Disciples gave Lane one condition when he left. They wanted him to come back and show them how to get right with God.

Since then he has been helping them find jobs, taking them to church and showing them that they "have the opportunity to make it outside of the street life."

He knows it's tough to hold a steady job, tough to rise above the hopelessness. Someone he knows once pointed to a pile of garbage and said, "See that over there? That's me."

Such feelings of self-loathing only start to improve when you start building strong relationships, Lane said.

"I try to serve these guys and show kids how their life-style can change," he said. "Your words are more effective if you have a relationship with the person you're talking to."

MIFA has a motto that Lane is living: "Help change the community by changing lives."