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| Prison Survivor Tells it Straight |
| By The Oregonian |
| Published: 03/20/2003 |
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When the former felon lumbered in, the students fell silent. Smile wide between graying beard and fleece cap, Carl Upchurch apologized for being late, offered a cheery 'How you doin'?' then raised a book over his head. It was 'Convicted in the Womb: One Man's Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker.' It is his autobiography. This life story, made into a TV movie last year, brought Upchurch to Open Meadow Middle School on both February 28 and March 3. Caldera, a Portland arts organization, paid him to visit and provide inspiration. Many students at the North Portland alternative school struggle with poverty or abuse, fractured families or academic failure. Upchurch told them that he'd seen all of it -- and survived. Upchurch was raised in South Philadelphia largely by his grandmother, who was a prostitute. His first memory: Grandmother shooting at Grandfather while Upchurch ate lunch in his high chair. He was 3 years old. At 9, he left school. At 13, he joined a gang. At 21, he went to prison for armed robbery. In solitary confinement, he discovered a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets. The pain in the poetry clicked. Soon, he was devouring books in the prison library. With the encouragement of a Quaker teacher, he earned a high school diploma, then three college degrees, behind bars. Once he was free, he aimed to free others -- from crime, poverty, drugs. He established the Progressive Prisoner's Movement to provide legal help to inmates. He started the National Council for Urban Peace and Justice to foster gang peace. After the Rodney King riots, Upchurch organized a first-ever national gang summit in 1993 that led to a truce between the infamous Crips and Bloods. But pacing in the Open Meadow gym, Upchurch kept the biography brief. In fact, he went straight to questions. What made you commit a robbery? 'Good question. I still don't know -- except I was hanging out with the wrong people.' How would you summarize life in jail? 'Probably the most painful and the most fortunate time in my life. There was a lot of violence, but I finally had a chance to think -- and think differently -- about my life.' If you could take anything back, what would it be? 'Walking out of school at age 9. It took me 30 years to recover from that decision.' Who was the biggest influence in your life? A professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Martha Conamacher, who was my teacher in the penitentiary. Do you have anything to offer us to help us through? 'A lot of times, I did things because others told me to them or just to show off. I wanted to show everyone I wasn't afraid. That I was tough. Don't tell those lies to yourself.' When a couple of boys said they wouldn't be afraid to go to jail, Upchurch knit his brow. In prison, he was stabbed and his jaw was broken. 'In a maximum security prison, no one really cares about you,' he said. 'They don't worry about you on the block. You're on your own. In my prison, there were 17 homicides and 277 stabbings in one year.' The boys shifted uneasily in their seats but didn't budge. He would be back, to talk with students one-on-one. 'Talk with these kids, and they all have dreams, but they're hard to realize when you're hungry or your mother has passed away or you're caught up in the court system,' school counselor Hanif Fazal said. 'So we want as many people as possible in their faces telling them not to quit, that it's possible to have a good life.' Lendell Sneed is a believer. The 13-year-old said he grew up without a dad, struggled in school, joined a gang. While education saved Upchurch, religious faith turned Sneed around. He's out of the gang. And he plans to attend Grant High School next year and join the football team. Then he wants to go to college. 'Today I learned that sometimes you mess up and that life is hard,' the eighth-grader said. 'But you have to deal with it. Tomorrow can be different.' |
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