They know him as "Black," a convicted felon and longtime member of the Bloods street gang. He is leaning far back in a chair, under the only working light in a nondescript rowhouse in East Baltimore. He is talking about street life and hustling. And this group of more than 25 gang members and young men recently sprung from prison are hanging on his every word.
"Bloods. Crips. BGF. Purple City," he says, rattling off the gang affiliations of the men in the room.
He pauses. The room is still.
"That don't mean nothing!" he thunders.
Black, a 28-year-old with cornrows whose real name is Tony Wilson, meets with this group four days a week as a youth coordinator for the Rose Street Community Center, operating in a netherworld between street gangs and official Baltimore. Even as his efforts are praised by the mayor, he must keep a measured distance from police and City Hall for fear of losing his credibility on the streets.
On this day, he chides the young men for choosing drug-dealing as the easy way out. He ridicules those who want to spend $100,000 on a car but can't pay their rent or a cell phone bill and don't bother to get insurance or even a driver's license.
"Go ahead. Dig a hole. Bury yourself. You can't talk about that junkie; you can't talk about that homeless guy. Because you are becoming him. If you don't get your life together and get your things in the right perspective, distinguishing your wants from your needs, that will be you."
"Now," he says, clasping his hands on his lap and leaning back in his chair again, "how many of you are willing to save a life?"
Wilson means this not only in a literal sense. His group helps people earn GEDs, establish bank accounts, get driver's licenses and start businesses. So far, he's gotten more than 100 young men to pledge to aid others in changing their lives. He peels off bills from a wad of fives after each meeting to keep his proteges motivated.
The center has the support and encouragement of civic leaders and government. The group, which receives money from the Abell Foundation, recently secured more than $220,000 in federal grants to fund, among other things, the opening of a youth homeless shelter, which would be the only one of its kind in Baltimore. Last week, in her "State of the City" speech, Mayor Sheila Dixon singled out Rose Street and a similar West Baltimore group, saying that "countless lives have been stabilized; countless lives have been saved" through their work.
