On an unseasonably warm July day, Lionel Irving gets up from the sofa on his front porch to hug his 16-year-old niece Queenie who is just getting home from a summer program called Self Enhancement, Inc.
鈥淪he just came from a college tour,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 our star.鈥�
Queenie visited Tulane University in New Orleans. Lionel sees education as the most important thing for helping young people improve their lives and he gets visibly excited when he talks about Queenie鈥檚 success.
鈥淚鈥檓 really big on education, because that鈥檚 the way they make it out,鈥� he says after she goes inside.
That鈥檚 how he made it out.
In many communities 鈥� including in parts of North Portland, Oregon, where Lionel grew up 鈥� gangs, drugs and gun violence are all part of a cycle of intergenerational trauma that is made worse by poor education. But Lionel has decided the cycle ends with him.
The Cycle Continues
Lionel is a big, soft-spoken guy. Growing up in school he was a charmer. But he never did very well in class, so he was always uncomfortable there. Meanwhile, his mom, his uncles 鈥� the people he looked up to 鈥� were involved with gangs and drug-dealing.
So in sixth grade he did what was comfortable. He joined a gang and started selling drugs. It wasn鈥檛 long, he says, before he was carrying a gun, then using a gun.
鈥淕uns have impacted my life all the way back to before I was born,鈥� he said, 鈥渨hen the police killed my uncle Ricky.鈥�
Ricky Johnson by a Portland Police officer in 1975.
Older gang members recruited younger kids like Lionel to sell drugs and attack rivals. Twelve-year-olds are vulnerable, easy to manipulate. And only moreso if their dad is in jail or, like Lionel, their mom is a drug addict.
As Lionel got older, it was his turn to bring on younger kids.
鈥淚t was nothing to have a 13- or 14-year-old with me because that鈥檚 what I came up under,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd so the cycle just continues and I鈥檓 pretty sure those same young men have done it to somebody else.鈥�
This cycle of violence puts guns in the hands of kids. The first time Lionel shot at someone he was in sixth grade.
鈥淎nd I was so scared,鈥� he recalled. 鈥淚 was terrified.鈥�
After that, he says, it became easy. More importantly, people respected him. Suddenly, he had clout that he didn鈥檛 have as an unsure kid in school.
Lionel said guns were like a high, one he chased for years.
Lionel looked up to his cousin Donald Means. And Means trusted Lionel, asking him to take care of his children if anything ever happened to him.
In 1999, Means was shot and killed by a rival gang. Lionel spent the next two years looking for revenge.
Friends and family did what they could to get him over Means鈥� death, but he was fixated. Two years later, Lionel shot and killed 14-year-old Tommy Brock. Brock had been standing with a group of rival gang members on a street corner in Tacoma, Washington. In a , the Department of Justice said Brock was an innocent bystander.
Everything, Lionel says, changed in an instant.
鈥淲hen it happened, that was such a terrible event,鈥� Lionel said. 鈥淵ou can never 鈥榰n-live鈥� those moments. All the advice you heard leading up to that [moment] all makes sense now.鈥�
Lionel went to prison in 2004 and served 12 years for manslaughter. In prison he enrolled in GED certificate classes. He had never learned how to read and, as in middle school, he started acting out.
A teacher in prison tried something different. She put him in an English as a second language class even though it was his only language. He was skeptical. Teachers had been passing him off to other classes his whole life. It was the other prisoners who invested in each other, encouraged growth and education.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a correctional institution but correction is optional,鈥� he said.
But this experiment with ESL classes worked.
鈥淚t was amazing,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ecause now I was smarter than these dudes, man.鈥�
The classes gave him confidence. His world opened up. He read his first book.
鈥淚t was a book for a seven-year-old,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut it was my first book ever and it just kicked the light on for me. I was in another world.鈥�
While in prison, Lionel says he became an activist. He wanted to help kids make better decisions before they wound up dead or in jail.
Soon after his release he helped found a group called Men Building Men, which brings together men from the community to mentor young students and instill a culture of accountability. The goal is to break a cycle of violence that has played out over generations.
Lionel Irving shows his tattoos on July 1, 2019, in North Portland. Lionel is trying to interrupt the cycle of violence in his community that led him to join a gang at a young age.
Jonathan Levinson / OPB
鈥淭he trauma is real. And there鈥檚 so many different levels of trauma,鈥� he said. 鈥淔rom hunger, to just being ignored, to violence, to sexual. In the sixth grade, I was having sex with drug addicts. They were adults. You know, I was only, like, 12-years-old. I mean, I wanted to do it, I thought, but that will warp a 12-year-old. These are grownups.鈥�
Gun violence is at the heart of that trauma. He lifts his shirt to reveal about 30 tombstones tattooed on his chest.
鈥淵ou know, most of these are from gang violence,鈥� he said, running his hand over the tattoos. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 recognize it at first. I suffered a lot of trauma from gun violence. And man, guns ain鈥檛 never did nothing good for my family.鈥�
Reaching Out To The Community
Lionel and other volunteers with Men Building Men planned an August back-to-school event. At a planning meeting in a Northeast Portland community center, Lionel saw a contractor who had been working on his house drive by.
鈥淚 got this contractor driving down the street that stole all my money, but he鈥檚 going the wrong way,鈥� Lionel told the group as he stood up to look. 鈥淗e鈥檚 not going to the house.鈥�
Lionel learned early on to resolve conflict with violence. Situations like this one with the contractor test a new set of skills 鈥� skills that go back to that teacher in prison who, through education, gave him a chance to pick a different path.
Making good decisions is about having a plan, Lionel said, and being able to anticipate the ramifications of your actions. But trauma complicates all of that.
鈥淵our mind is so cluttered,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e angry, you got to make the decision in anger with trauma wrapped around you that you haven鈥檛 addressed. You鈥檙e going to make a bad decision.鈥�
Now, Lionel visualizes how he鈥檚 going to talk to the contractor. He knows he鈥檚 likely to get mad and wants a plan to handle his emotions.
He passed on what he鈥檚 learned to his family.
鈥淲e have no more criminals,鈥� Lionel said, 鈥渘o more inmates, no more gang members.鈥�
Now, he鈥檚 teaching it to his community.
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