- 1 year ago
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CreativityTranscript
00:00Hey it's the all new morning or a lot with Alicia B and Clay and we do a lot of interviews we talk
00:04to a lot of people and for most of those it's usually the first time that we're meeting that
00:09person and so we're learning about them it's kind of cool to be able to talk to someone that you
00:13consider a friend somebody that's already been in and that's what we get to do today with Charles
00:17Charles man thank you for coming in the studio with us thanks for having me y'all the fact that
00:22typically we just talk to you over the phone like you've come in with your amazing daughter
00:27and when we were like when we were thinking of like the idea of bringing you in it wasn't like
00:35we had it already set right it was just a conversation that we had and we were like wait
00:41hold on Charles is much cooler than he is trying to tell us so can you tell us a little bit about
00:48your story okay um I guess first I should let you know I'm from Detroit I'm from Linwood and Davidson
00:54I'm 43 years old I graduated from high school in 1998 born and raised here um I was a street kid
01:02you know troubled childhood troubled neighborhoods or whatnot and I was in the street so to not get
01:09into a whole lot of detail a long story short I caught a lot of armed robbery and weapons charges
01:13and I did 20 years in prison wow so I just came home June of this year June 5th 2025 and um I'm happy
01:21to be here uh there's a lot about me that is different currently I'm an author and a motivational
01:26speaker and I'm a father and a husband and an uncle and I'm free um these are things that when we met
01:35Charles we we didn't realize we didn't know we we met you because we were talking on the air about
01:40some food and different combination and found out that that your daughter is an amazing chef by the way
01:45yeah um and brought in food and that's when we started talking about you and your story and just
01:50how the things that you've gone through in your life the decisions that you made bad or good
01:56have brought you to a point to where you are right now right and that point is helping people
02:01make better decisions when they have a chance before they make a bad decision so when I was young
02:07you know people would try to talk to you but they talk to you like you're a child right I was old
02:12enough at least mentally to understand what was going on around me and I was offended when people
02:18would talk to me like I had nobody to really give me the real so um that's maybe that's mostly my
02:22perspective when I talk to you I want you to understand that I'm not trying to feed you words
02:27or I don't want you to think that I'm trying to sell you a dream I'm going to tell you the reality of
02:31what it is to be shot four times when you're 21 years old and you have to learn how to walk again
02:35or 21 years later there are days when I can't get up and walk at all my knee swells I want you to
02:41understand what that comes with because when you're out here playing with these guns and these
02:44switches and you think it's a video game right prison's not a video game watching people die
02:50from prison watching people die in prison it's not a video game so I needed someone to kind of tell me
02:55those things in that manner right and I never had that so what was the turning point for you can you
03:01take us to the moment where you were like yeah this isn't it like I don't want to I don't want to
03:06live this life anymore and I want to help other people or at least at that moment help yourself
03:09so I've always tried to help people um you know even with the things that I was doing
03:15in some round obtuse way I thought that I was helping right you know but uh really what happened
03:20was I was sitting in the hole I did 18 months in the hole for a particular ticket I caught wow and
03:25I'm sitting in the hole and I started talking to myself and so I said come buy me a tv so I bought
03:29me a tv I'm sitting on board and I'm watching this guy speak on tv and I can't tell you his name
03:35but it's kind of like he was talking to me well if you have something that you can give to somebody
03:40why won't you give it to him so I always used to write I used to do that you know my poetry and my
03:46short stories and things of that nature but I never entered into anything um so I was sitting in the
03:51hole and this contest came along University of Michigan has a prisoner creative arts program
03:56it's an excellent program they do it throughout the state anyone who's incarcerated that can write
04:00or draw is eligible to be in this program wow that's amazing and so I wanted to participate
04:05but I was in the hole and I couldn't so you have to be six months ticket free so I end up transferring
04:10to another facility and um at the time I'm still in level four and I get here and the guy that's the
04:16clerk for the special activities department knows that I write and he's kind of badgering me to put a
04:22poem in Keith Porter he's still locked up free my man Keith but uh he made me put a poem in and it was
04:29called we were kings uh once and it won so it kind of tripped me out that my poem won they actually
04:34gave me a cash prize and then the staff member was encouraging me to submit it to PCAP so I did
04:40not instead wait wait wait so you you went through you you entered uh not against your own will but you
04:47didn't want to originally I didn't want to enter it yeah you win why is it stopped there for you why
04:52why not enter it so everything I write is personal um whether it's a love poem uh political
04:59view um George Floyd died I wrote a poem called I can't breathe like it's always personal to me
05:05um so I didn't want to put my work in front of people that I don't know I don't know what they're
05:10going to be judging against what's the criteria because they don't say anything other than you have
05:13to be incarcerated right to participate yeah so what if what I think is great is really elementary
05:18you know and so uh I didn't want to submit it but they did it anyhow a few weeks later I get a letter
05:24from UM and they're saying hey we like this poem we're going to publish it they do these anthologies
05:29every year and I got a couple of them that I'm in here and my poems are in these books like I have
05:36a poem this one I have seven poems in this book um it was eye-opening for me it was like wow I can do
05:42something different I don't have to go home uh go back to organizations or go back to any type of ties
05:48that I had previous so it allowed me to make friendships with people that I never would have been
05:52friends with I'm from Linwood and Davis ain't no white people where I live right so now my best
05:56friend is a white guy named Bob from all late like that's my guy you know I'm saying so it just allowed
06:04me to see things differently once I was able to see things differently I was able to make some
06:07different decisions and so really that's that was my turning point sitting in the hole 10 years 15
06:13years ago wow I'm imagining you've you've had a lot of scary moments in your life I mean whether it
06:18be physically scared or anxiety type scared where does publishing something putting your personal
06:25work out there in front of the world like where's that rank in your my scariest moments in life moments
06:31so let's run down scary moment I've been shot on two different occasions wow I've survived other
06:37shootouts um I've been hit with various different objects I've been in car crashes I think number one
06:45one and two is publishing my work and get on a roller coasters anymore um yeah I think those are
06:54the scariest things it was probably scarier for me than prison going to prison I kind of knew my dad gave
07:01me prison gang when I was a kid I didn't know that's what I was getting until I actually got locked up
07:05when I got locked up I'm like damn I'm gelling like I already know this stuff you know um so when I
07:09got to prison it was more so if I'm gonna run into anybody if there's an issue you know how do you get to
07:15what you need to get to because you hear all the stories about prison right some of them are
07:19exaggerated but most of them are true right um so you know I wasn't really scared about that but
07:23putting my work out was scary because now you got a whole group of college kids or whomever else
07:28and you don't know who's going to say something and they might screenshot it and send it to someone
07:33else or whatever you know so I was I was yeah I was scared imagine just the perspective of hearing
07:39you say that you were more ready and set up for success in the prison than what it is to just be
07:47a black man in society it is such a it's such a interesting perspective to have and I think that
07:55a lot of people especially here in the city can also understand that because it's it's such a
08:01it's so unfortunate to like know how to handle yourself somewhere that unfortunately you should you
08:06don't want to go to most of us know that like before we know our ABC right yeah and instead
08:12you would have wanted you know like you said that that blunt honesty of like how it is to live life so
08:18having that perspective is just a lot more eye-opening than I even realized because I know that a lot of my
08:24own family members probably know a lot more than than they should about how to handle themselves there
08:29but don't know how to handle themselves in the real world like where it's a lot different than
08:34what you experience in prison well I think more so than anything it kind of goes back now y'all bear
08:40with me I'm a granddad's kid so it's kind of an old line of thought but it goes back to the family
08:45structure if you look at the time when they started allow black people to get welfare they start to say
08:50you could get it but you can't have a father or a male in the house so what you do is you tear down
08:55that structure there's no one to be the example and the examples that we get are guys kind of hanging
09:01around because there's nowhere for them to be right there used to be no help for able-bodied
09:06quote-unquote able-bodied 18 year old black man right you couldn't get any type of assistance so if
09:10you couldn't find a job or if mom got sick or whatever you just made a dumb choice it's over
09:16right you know I got a lot of felonies on my record I've been home since June I can't tell you how
09:21many applications I filled out where I get a denial less than 12 hours later on email um or just flat out
09:28yeah well which is crazy to me because and sorry to cut you off but you've got the University of
09:35Michigan I mean one of the top schools in the country seeking you out to come and speak to an
09:41audience yeah I'll be on at the University of Michigan Detroit on October 23rd there there's
09:45managers at whatever business that look at you on a piece of paper and say no this isn't for us
09:50yeah you're looking at a 43 year old man but you're looking at the paperwork of a 21 year old kid
09:56and then you're not knowing the circumstances right you know arm robbery I'm not going to
10:01sugarcoat it or gloss it over it's a horrible thing to do um I never really thought about it at the time
10:06but what did the person feel on the other end of that gun right the way I looked at at the time was
10:12I'm not going to shoot anybody I'm not going to hit anybody I don't want your money I'm robbing
10:18this business right be cool that's how I looked at it it's not a great perspective in retrospect
10:27but at the same time these were the monies that I was using to take care of my children right to
10:33help my sick dad my you know my mama they have their issues or whatever else that I was doing
10:37so it doesn't justify what I was doing it just states the fact that since I had gotten my first
10:43adult felony it's been hard to have employment you know so you have to figure it out so one of the
10:51and one of the last things that I really want to hit on is not not anyone makes it alone like you've
10:57got someone to help you out you've got and you know you talked about your guy Bob or even the people
11:01that submitted your work without you knowing what's it feel like to know that you could be that person
11:06for other people I mean the roles are completely reversed for you now with position in the in the
11:12role that you're taking like right how what does that mean to you especially having your own kids
11:18who I'm going to assume you don't want them to follow in the same path so they better not
11:23so how is it like knowing like Clay said that you are now that example that you wanted as a kid
11:31and it hasn't even sank in yet it's humbling because I recognize I have a unique memory so I can kind
11:40of go back to remember exactly how I felt when I was 14 and this happened or when I was 10 and this
11:44happened and uh I kind of I uh what's the word I have empathy for them you know I understand what
11:51the circumstances are and sometimes it's just too hard choices um you know are you going to eat today
11:57are you going to walk around this pair of pants with a hole in it today so for me it's a humbling thing
12:03to be able to go back but I had people in my past who in their own ways try to be there for me you
12:09know um I got two amazing wives I don't know why God bless me that way but they're amazing like my
12:17children my mother my mother-in-law my father-in-law this core network of people like I'm not trying to
12:26sink I'm flying I'm a big fella but I'm up there right but they're right up under me I've never had
12:31that before and so if you can show somebody like yeah it might be really really horrible but look
12:37around you there is one or two people out here that were coming and help you show you guide you lift
12:43you if possible it could be a life-changing thing you know it happened for me so no that's true so I
12:52know you you do a lot of speaking and that's something that's become you know a passion really
12:57important if people are looking to have you okay come speak to their crowd if even if they're just
13:04like hey I want to learn more about your story they're going through something similar they have
13:07a family member what what's the best way for people to get a hold of you so the best way to get a hold
13:10of me is probably email my email is cgbsenior the word at gmail.com so cgbsenior at gmail.com okay
13:22and the question that I have been wanting to ask for sure is if anyone is actively hearing watching
13:30this that was in the same position that you were at 21 at 14 and now at 43 what do you want to say
13:39to them so that they don't follow in the same footsteps cry I never cried um I held a lot of
13:49different things in I cry all the damn time now I'm like a big punk but um it cleanses you and
13:57sometimes that's what you need to change your perspective your thought process so even the
14:02things that you're looking at what you want to eat today um it's a tool God gave it to us use it
14:08yeah I and I'm speaking for Alicia here I mean like we started off the show new I think we're lucky
14:17to meet and become friends with people like yourself and your family and it's just you know
14:22what I mean it's bigger things at play you kind of get that feeling and and you know we're just
14:29grateful grateful for you to come in and call and y'all see I got them with me when I call in
14:34they're with me we here in the background it's like the whole family and so it makes me grateful too
14:40because like I said this is totally different from how I ever lived my life I never imagined to be
14:44able to live my life the way that I live my life um prison saved my life literally I probably would
14:50be dead period and then PCAP was the thing that gave me something to hand join to make that turn
14:58so yeah I mean I'm grateful for y'all too because like I say I I couldn't call you six months ago
15:04I didn't know who Clay and Alicia were I was just flipping through the radio station one day and I said
15:08oh they playing that right there that's you know I got back in my mode I was in the early 2000s you
15:14know but uh yeah I appreciate it man I really do well we appreciate you and just everything that you
15:22have shared with us off and on camera everything that you share with the people who will hear you
15:27October 23rd I'll be at the University of Michigan Detroit Center in downtown Detroit come on out
15:34I get to read my poetry it'd be some other poets there some artwork there come show the support to
15:39the program to the guys like me who are really trying to make a change in our lives and in the
15:43lives of others I love that and just one last thing if you are scared about putting out your poetry
15:50are you ready to then voice it to people on October 23rd I can read my poetry all the time I was
15:57gonna say look because what I do is I just look at them that's who I read to yeah so it makes it easy for
16:03me okay I was about to I was about to say I'll give you some some good juju
16:07okay I appreciate it I appreciate it Charles thanks so much man taking the time and family
16:13coming in we appreciate all you thanks for having us