🔵💥 By David Breaux. Photo by lauragrafie.
I was raised in Chicago at a time when where you lived, what side of the street you lived on, determined what public school you could attend; for example, I attended kindergarten at Parker’s grade school but if I wanted to continue in 1st grade at a public school I could no longer attend Parker’s. I’d have to attend Walter Reed because I lived on the North side of 65th place instead of on the South side at 65th place. This was done due to red-lining and re-districting by the city. My parents who valued all 5 of their children getting the best possible education sent all 5 of their children to St. Bernards. (Which is now called “St. Benedict’s of Africana”) A saint I never heard of in the 7 years I attended. Even though I was told that after I finished my 7th grade year I would not be allowed to return (due to multiple offenses) having become disillusioned with the Catholic Church, I was more than happy never to return; until I was told I could not go back to Parker’s Grammar School and had to attend Walter Reed because I lived on the wrong side of the street.
I quickly learned I was ahead on the educational curve when I realized what they were teaching in 8th grade I’d already learned in the 5th + 6th grades at St. Bernards. Education wasn’t the problem then; the growing gang problem was and what I had to begin to study even more. The gang recruitment and wars were just beginning and by the time I graduated from grade school, the gang wars were growing exponentially. Every direction you went in you had to content with a new gang asking: “Who you ride with?” or “What you be about?”, two phrases I grew to hate and still do to this day. I chose to go to Simeon High School upon graduation from Walter Reed because it was the safest and most direct route to get to and from school. Unfortunately with the first two months after a serious shooting, the local gang sent over a hundred members to Simeon to catch and kill me and some of my friends. I narrowly escaped and never went back. I explained to my father when and what had happened and of course he understood.
I spent the next 2 years fighting gangs in every direction, wound up in the Cook County Jail facing my first 1st Degree Murder charge. I plead self defense in the police station and after 5 ½ months, having been transferred to the County Jail to be charged and tried as an adult, my case was SWOL’d, (Sealed Without Litigation) and I was released. I met Brenda when I was 17, by then the peace had long since been made with our arch nemesis’s and rivals, The Black Disciples; and I’d been hustlin’ pool, bootlegging booze, selling pills and acid, stealing cars, boosting, selling or assisting in selling cocaine + heroin. (Which I hated and retired from.) I was also a “stick up kid”. I lost my first “Rappie” (Rap Partner) about one year later, he was killed by police in a robbery attempt, I was in the Audie home facing my own robbery charge. So after I beat the robbery charge and got out, lost and stuck in limbo as it were, I met Brenda; and a little over a year later was responsible for her death.
I beat the initial murder charge at an inquest that gave me a Manslaughter which was reduced to Involuntary Manslaughter which carried 3 to 10 back in 1974, but unfortunately the Chicago Police had labeled me a menace and threatened to give me 15 to 35 years if I did take the 5 to 15 they’d offered. I took the 5 to 15. The police moved one of the robberies and provided witnesses I knew wasn’t there so I knew the Detective who go upset at the inquest decision and said he was gonna get my nigger ass if he had to fix it his-self, had done as he’d promised. So off to Satesville in the spring of 1975 I went. My father came to see me and asked how I was doing. I had told him when I first saw the assigned committee that I wouldn’t let them make a slave out of me for $ 8 to $ 10 dollars a month. I think the highest pay was $ 15 a month, depending on the institutional assignment.
I told the Warden he could kiss my ass and opted for “unassigned” at 3 dollars a month; but after my father came to see me in 1976 I decided to put in to take the GED test, and of course some genius decided that meant putting me in school. They needed bodies to keep Federal money coming in so even after guys dropped out and I refused to go, they still carried us on their rolls! I filed a grievance because requesting to take the GED (High School Equivalency Test) doesn’t require you go to school. Again, they just wanted to pad their rules so they could justify getting more Federal/State funding. I won my grievance, never attended one class and took the test and passed it. Again, the benefit of a decent Catholic grade school education.
I took some vocational schooling after that. A small engines class which I passed (Lawnmowers, motorcycles…) Back then they had other trades as well. When I returned to the joint on my second bit, I decided the best way to spend my time was in College, so I signed up for College courses; taking 4, and 5 classes a semester. I took courses from Joliet Jr. College and Northern Illinois University. My mother had been going in and out of psychiatric hospitals since I was 5 years old so I took every psychology course they offered, in the hopes it would better help me understand her.
By 1985 I had more than enough hours to graduate from Joliet and chose to graduate without my AA degree because they changed the criteria after telling us one thing and doing something else. Met my first wife’s; photo is on the front page of the Joliet newspaper. I was in the first graduating class ever from Statesville.
I continued to take courses from Northern Illinois University until they suspended me for writing an indignant letter to the Dean’s Office. I sued both the College and Statesville who put me in Segregation for writing the letter which wasn’t their business and I sued NIU for suspending me without a hearing, violating their “Student Code”, which entitled me to a hearing. I sued them not to reap any financial benefit but to check the Institutional Adjustment Committee which was infamous for not following their rules and to check a bitch ass Lieutenant who was constantly violating those rules. Once he was on the hot seat, his attitude changed. Not only did he refuse to accept my written defense, his arrogant ass gave me 15 days after continuing my hearing because he didn’t have a copy of the letter I was charged with writing and never came back.
I sued them and the college for violating my “due process.” I kept them in court for nearly 2 years, cost them both a boatload of money and insured neither did the same again. Both cases were eventually “dismissed without prejudice” for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The state case went all the way to Federal Court and was set for trial when they hit me with a tech disputing the Federal Judges order that 2 state correctional officers had to be present. The US attorney General came in just before the judge was calling out the jury and contested the Judges order regarding the state officers.
A year later they dismissed the state case and the school having got a change of venue because I’d been given some “Bus Therapy”. (i.e transferred to Danville, then to Menard.) The school filed the same failure to state acclaim after I beat several motions for dismissal with a single argument. Every time they would sight cases about other people, I would remind the curt that the US Constitution guarantees my individual rights and has nothing to do with whatever happened to Tom Dick or Harry and is irrelevant to what they did to me and every time the States and Colleges motions were denied. So I won!