For this assignment, I chose Stanley “Tookie” Williams. Williams was born on December 29th, 1953 in New Orleans, Louisiana, but moved to Los Angeles at a young age. When him and his mother moved to Los Angeles, he engaged in the street culture that consisted of violence and drugs. Due to his mother working many jobs to make ends meet, Williams ended up participating in mischief on the streets. There, he saw the violence and drugs, and later participated in them. He later gained recognition as a street fighter that was brutal and ruthless.
As Williams got older, he would come in and out of juvie, but developed an interest in bodybuilding at the age of 16. After his release in juvie for a case for car theft in 1971, Williams was approached by Raymond Washington, and proposed an idea to join together and use their influence to start and form a bigger Crips gang. And as a result, he decided to join, but the reasoning for joining was different. Williams’ reasoning for agreeing to join was to, “cleanse the neighborhood of all these, you know, marauding gangs.”, but would later realize that they would become the exact thing they were against. As the 1970s went on, he became the de facto leader of the Crips, due to the other prominent leaders getting either killed or incarcerated. He would live a double life; where during the day, he would be a counselor and studied at Compton College for sociology, and at night, he would go and commit numerous violent attacks against the Bloods gang.
When it comes to what inspired Williams to join this lifestyle, the main contributor was how he would always be on the streets and would go to abandoned houses and would see instances of violence and drugs on a daily basis. He would watch adults get drunk, use drugs and would see pit bull fights, and eventually would participate in fighting other younger adults. As a result, he became infamous for being good in fights and would fight older kids but would become a target when it came to other people in the neighborhood. Williams would end up carrying a switchblade to protect himself. This continuous cycle of violence would result in him getting kicked out of high school, go in and out of juvie, and then led to him joining and expanding the Crips gang.
Williams became more associated with peace when he was sentenced to death for 4 counts of murder. While he spent two years in solitary, he began to look at his life choices and wanted to make amends for his prior actions. This change in thought and actions were due to his devotion to God and started to speak out against gang violence. Throughout the process of filing for appeals, he would write books that were about anti-gang ideas that were centered around children. In 2002, a member of the Swiss Parliament (Mario Fehr), nominated Williams for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work against gang violence. He would be nominated for the award for a total of six other times, but never won it. Even though he tried to appeal against being sentenced to death many times, all efforts were denied. In 2004, he helped create the Tookie’s Protocol for Peace, where it’s an agreement of peace against the Bloods and Crips in the country. This is when he received a letter from President George W. Bush, which commended Williams for his actions. On December 13th, 2005, he was executed by lethal injection, but his late legacy in the efforts to bring an end to gang violence will be remembered.
When looking at the life of Stanley Williams, his life took a total 180 turn when it came to how his life was, and what his life became when he was incarcerate and sentenced to death. Even though he started his life as a prominent gang member, he turned his life around when people expected him to amount to nothing. But when things weren’t looking well for him and his well-being, he turned things around and started to advocate for stopping gang violence. Not only that, he wrote books that informed about the dangers of gang violence and gained respect for doing so. Overall, seeing this made sure that change can be made whenever, and peace can be attained with the right mindset.