Making it count
“Some of the situations you guys have been talkin’ about, I’ve been there. That’s why I’m here—to help you so you don’t have to go through the same thing,” Davis says.
Throughout the week students navigate the ropes course, dig for clams, and hike in the woods. Davis associates NorthBay’s natural environment with his students’ everyday battles. He relates sea grasses that sift pollutants from the Chesapeake Bay to “filters” who act as positive role models in a child’s life. He relates a vulture’s bad rap to stereotypes people face every day.
He teaches these lessons week after week, but this week passed quickly. It’s already the last day and Davis’s last chance to hit home with these kids, especially D.C.
“I’m going to change my last lesson and focus on gangs,” Davis says in a moment away the students. “I usually focus on taking action, but even though D.C. says he’s not in a gang, he’s showing a lot of signs that he is—throwing gang signs, wearing red.”
Message in disguise
Davis focuses his lesson on how animals survive in the wild—in packs or on their own—to disguise a message about gangs.
The prompt works. The conversation quickly turns from animals in the wild to life in the city. D.C. speaks up about his experiences.
“If you travel in packs in Baltimore, people don’t mess with you at all. But if you’re in a pack and you got on one color they gonna consider you as a gang member,” he says. After summarizing the rules and risks of red and blue, he recounts a time when he turned to Bloods members for protection.
Davis relates
In an attempt to emphasize the severity and dangers of gang affiliation, Davis tells a bone-chilling story of his experience with two Crips members in Los Angeles. As the Bloods’ biggest rival gang, Crips members wear blue—and kill over red.
In an unusual 15 minutes of silence, the group listens intently.
“My roommate was a Crip, and being from Baltimore I didn’t have a clue … One night we go out … and I’m 3,000 miles from home, 18 years old, sittin’ in a car with two convicted felons … One of them has a loaded shotgun, and he’s talkin’ about how he’s gonna kill the first person he sees wearing red,” Davis says.
Maybe it’s sinking in.
All but one
During the last night’s evening program every week at NorthBay, educators, teachers, and chaperones invite the students to “choose life” and tell them, “You have the power to be.” Students signify their decision by coming to the stage and touching a brick.
Young boys and girls filter up, and the steps where they sat become visible. Nearly every student graces the stage, hugging teachers and chaperones, embracing their stand against violence, against drugs, against gangs.
Nearly everyone except D.C.