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Glenda Dunigan: Good morning. My name is Glenda Dunigan. I'm a volunteer with the Museum of Durham history. Today we are talking to Steve Chalmers, former police chief of Durham, North Carolina. Good morning, Steve. Good

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Steve Chalmers: morning. Good morning. Glenda, how are you today? I am doing quite well. I hope you Unknown: are doing fantastic. First, could you tell us a little bit about your background, where you were born,

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a little bit about your family, okay, Steve Chalmers: okay, well, I'm born here in the in the bull city of Durham, just actually not too many blocks, a few blocks from here, in an area that was at that time

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affectionately known as the bottom, now referred more to as the south side, and actually was born in Lincoln Hospital, which was the black hospital back, you know, during that time, that was On Fayetteville Street in the site now where Lincoln Community

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Health Center sits. And again, grew up in that area the bottom my mom and dad was Lacey and Ruby Chalmers, and my mother's maiden name was Hayes, and my mother came out of South Carolina and moved here as a young girl with her parents when

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they moved here. And my dad actually was born in the Lillington area, grew up in the Sanford Broadway area, and actually moved here to Durham after coming out of the service the United States Army. And he moved here because his daughter

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had moved from the Sanford area to Durham, and he came here for see what opportunities that were here, as opposed to going back on the farm where they were raised again my early years of education. And one of the things I always say is that, you know,

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education starts the day you were born, and before I even entered elementary school, my earliest teaching in a setting with other kids was at A nursery school that was operated in the bottom, in the back room of a fish market. Oh, wow. And there

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was a lady. Her name was Miss Mitty Austin, and she ran a fish market on Cobb Street and near the Cobb and Willard street down in the bottom, and she prepared all of the neighborhood kids for first grade, and she did this for years and years and years.

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So prior to going into the first grade, you would go to miss Mitty Austin, and she had a little room built onto the back of her fish market, and she had a little bench that was built around the wall. And we would go in and we will sit, you know, on

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those benches, and that's where we learn the books of the Bible. We learned, you know, our numbers and our alphabets and all of the different things that we really needed to learn, you know, as we prepared

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Unknown: for first, this is something she did for the love of community, formally trained, Steve Chalmers: not, not formally trained teacher. And we would take nickels, dimes, whatever your parents, you know,

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your parents would give you a few coins to go, and you would give her that little contribution. But there was no charge every, every year, each class would take a class picture. I still have my class picture. I still have my

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brother's class picture, and he was six years older. So like I said, this went on for years and years and years. Ironically, most people will remember Frank Howard Austin, who was the Dean of boys at Hillside High School for years and years and years.

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This was actually his sister and and they all came out of the bottom. And so it was just almost like they were just educators. But we're calling prop Austin, for Professor Austin at Hillside. And he was, he was the man at Hillside High

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School for decades, and it's one of the smartest men I ever met in my life. But that was, that was, again, what we actually got our kind of got our start. As far as back education. First grade, I went to Line Park School on the west end for for

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three years, first, second and third grade, some of the most memorable years of my life. My first grade teacher was Miss Mary Grant, and this lady just continues to actually be, not only a role model or supporter, but she again, helped continue

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to move me along the path of understanding that I was a special person in the eyes of God and. And that I should recognize that. And she made us feel that way. And went on from there to cc Spaulding for four years. And again, it appears

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that every school I went to there were, you know, one teacher that I remember more than others that really kind of stood out. And at that at CC Spaulding, it was Miss Nancy rice. And ironically, years and years and years and years later,

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she would become my sister in law, because I married her husband's baby sister and so. But again, very affectionate lady. And one of the things we remember, I remember mostly about her. She would take us out on the playground, and she would

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kind of help us, kind of improve our skills in baseball. And she was actually a softball player, and I watched her at Hillside Park knock many home runs out of the park and but again, and then went on to shepherd Middle School. And again, there is when

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I kind of, I guess, formed my love for music and band, and I got into the band. So you're a musician, yeah. What instrument do you play? Tennis? Okay, and Mr. Oliver Hart, again, was our band director. And again at CC Spaulding, he along with Mr.

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James schooler, who was the principal there, the two people that really stood out, and it really kind of again impacted your life during those years. And then in high school, I went on to hillside High School, and again, continued to play in the

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band and under Clark Edgerton, and at that time, I think really, really was kind of the crowning jewel, as relates to A role model, and again, preparing us because hillside, you know, there was a legacy. There was a legacy, yeah, as it relates to

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music and being the best, even though, you know, we were at that time, you know, all black at that time, you know, he instilled in us that we were just as good as anybody. We could play music just as good as anyone. And we proved that, not

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only in our marching and precision there, but also doing concert season, when we would go to contest, and we played the highest level of music that they presented for contest. And in three years that I was at Hillside, we never made below a

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superior rating and and I can remember when I was in the 10th grade, and at that time was 10th, 11th and 12th in high school, and we had gone to one of the contests, and we didn't have the Blazers and the nice uniforms, like a lot of the

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other schools, we only wore white tops and black pants and shirt and skirts for the for the young ladies. And, and I can remember that some of the people pointing at us and kind of, you know, giggling a little bit about, you know, the fact that

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we didn't have the Blazers with the the emblems on the, you know, and things like that, which we later did get, but we just didn't have them go at that, that particular time and and I always remember and me, and my some of my friends and I,

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we talk about it now, is that snickering was stopped as soon as that baton went down. And we played this, we played the first note, and so, but we made believers of a lot of folk, you know, during that time. And actually, I was in the the the

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graduating class of the first integrated graduating class at Hillside. And that was an experience in itself. And so what year was that? That was the class of 1971 okay, at Hillside. That was the first year 7071 was the year that white kids

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actually came to hillside, and of course, you know, we that was something that we did not embrace, because that legacy belonged to us, and that's the way we felt at that time, and we really, really wanted to keep it that way. But you know, that was

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something that was inevitable, and we knew it was going to happen, so we, we actually, actually accepted it. And I can remember conversation with Mr. Edgerton, because, again, we had that marching precision, and we would kind of do, had to have

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time shows we were doing. We said, Look, you know now we're not going to be able to do everything that we used to do. You said Unknown: something that's interesting. Usually, when you

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talk to people, and they talk about integration, they look at it as like it was being forced upon us, but what you're saying is, I'm giving away my identity, and I think that's a beautiful way to look at it. I am giving

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away something, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. So, and that's that was one of the things we felt that people didn't realize. And. Is that they are thinking that this is a gift to us and that we should embrace it, but we understanding that we had

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overcome so many different obstacles and and hardships to actually get to where we were as a people, as even as an institution, and that now all of a sudden you feel that you're going to be able to make that better by bringing people of

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another race into that environment, which we're saying, you know, we don't accept that. But again, you know, Mr. Edgerton had that conversation with us and said, Look, you know, you know this is what's going to happen, and we're going

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to have to accept it. We're going to have to work through this, and we're going to have to remember that we're still going to be and his, his thing that he would write on the board is esprit de corps, that, you know, is for the spirit of the group,

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and that they are now part of the group, and we're going to have to accept it and work with it. And we did, and things worked out. They worked out fairly well, you know, for us, you know, as far as not only the school, but for the band and

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different things like that. So I mean it just, it just speaks to, I think, as a race of people, how we adjust and with whatever is put in our way, and we accept it, and we, you know, and we deal with it, we make it work.

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I think what I'm hearing is that you your community prepares you for a time such as that, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's the part that I'm embracing on that, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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So, I mean, so those high school years, and I look back and I said those were some of the best years of my life, and especially as it relates to growth and of course, leaving there once I graduated in 1971 I went on to North Carolina,

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A and T State University. My apologies, that's you had that's not a bad place to go. But yeah, and again, those four years, again, really, really prepared, because now you're, for the most part, on your own, even though you're financially, being

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financially supported by still by your parents and things like that. But now you you know you have, you're making your own, your own decisions, and you know nobody's can tell you when to go to bed, when to get up and do this. And, and I would say the

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first semester was challenging, but I did make it through that and and with some disappointments to my family, I did regroup and went back and I, and I did a lot better for the next three and I

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think it was because I'm a few years behind you. I think it was that sense of freedom, that community raised us, yeah, but that sense of freedom and understanding how we had to navigate it,

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Steve Chalmers: yeah, that was that was it. And again and again, being that the first time that you had that kind of freedom, even though you know you knew better and you knew you had already been raised and trained in the way that you

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should go. You know, you decide, look, I'm just going to have a lot of fun things like that, and as you also talk, they're going to be consequences and but you know, I think the driving force behind that, I mean, it kind of going back and regrouping, was

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when I came home and the grades had come in, and I saw the disappointment on my mom's face. And growing up, I had always seen the sacrifices that they both had made, you know, for my brother and I to make certain that we had everything that we

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need, that we were ever going to have when, you know, we could dress, you know, not with the most expensive clothes, but we could dress nice. We could go to school. We can have different things that other kids had and things like that. And during

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that time, it was, you know, in order to do that, there had to be sacrifices. And they were the ones who sacrificed so that, you know, it's really had been, you know, the driving force behind, I think, my motivation and decisions that I made moving

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forward, because I realized that I was not just a product of my parents, but I had a lot of other people that depended on me and relied on me to actually be successful, because they had also poured into me as part of that village. And I tell

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everyone I was part of a village, you know, from the teachers that I mentioned, from uncles, from aunts, from my grandmother, from the elders in the community who actually overlooked and oversaw a lot of things that we did when we were

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not at home. And I mean, so, so, you know, when people ask me about what influenced me, I'm saying there's no one influence, you know, it's just what period of period of my life are we talking about, and which experience that we are talking.

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About. But for the most part, there were always different things, different people, different events that actually charted my course. And, you know, and it had, it had not been for that village, which is something I talk about all the

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time, you know, I don't know who I would have been. My mom said, you know, as a kid, I was a little rambunctious. I kind of got in a little thing, and that was normal growing up in the bottom, I mean, you just, it was just, you know, it was just kind

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of a rough and tough kind of environment. And kids grew up kind of, you know, going out, getting bruises, falling down, getting hit, and all those kind of things are just part of life. And but my mom would often tell me. She said, you know, grand,

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her grandpa, would actually sit on the porch and watch me, and told her at one time, say, you'll never live to raise him. So this was but again and and I think back and what he said, What would probably have been true if it had not been for that

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village, if it had not been for the teachers, it had not been for the other people that when you're not at home, they had hands on you, or they had some kind of influence, you know, in your life and things like that. I not only school. I even talk

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about church, because my cousins and I, we would act we walked to Sunday school on Sunday mornings. Because everything you walk to school, and you walk to church, and pretty much most of the places you went, we walked because it was that was part of

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community. It was community that was part of community that was part of your village. And we laugh a lot of times because I, you know, I work in my church now, I've been on Usher, and I'm now kind of helped coordinate the security at church. But we

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laugh and we talk about the old ushers, and, yeah, in church. And you know, we had one Miss Mary Teasley that always Unknown: my mother was an usher, which always stood out

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in my mind, as, you know, you know, I don't know if you are what you would call her, but she was just the epitome of an usher, yeah, and she would walk up and down that aisle and I and and point out what you were doing correctly, and point out

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the kids and that was giggling and playing and things like that. And even, even in situations where you have a baby that's crying, she would come and say, give me that child. And they would take the baby and take her out, or go back in the

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corner, sit down, and the baby would stop crying, you know, but, but this was, this was community, and everybody took hand in raising and contributing. And it's something that we don't see a lot of we don't anymore. And I'm thinking

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that is again, you know, one of the things that with what I'm doing right now, and I get to that, is that we're kind of trying to recreate at least some type of facsimile of what a village incorporated during that time. But, you know, but those,

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you know, I majored in political science at A and T political science, yeah, initially I wanted to be a school teacher. I wanted to be a lawyer, and, well, that came later, but I wanted to be a school teacher because I had really, I mean, my

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life was so impacted by teachers, you know, throughout my life, and I just always felt that I wanted to teach. And then, like you, I decided I want to be a lawyer. And so I kind of went into political science, and I graduated, and praise be to

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God in four years. And so I came home, graduated in May of 75 and 1975 and I came home and I said, man, good, I'm glad I got that behind me. So had a little sit down with Mom and Daddy said, All right, what's your plan? My plan was to go to Central law

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school. And I said, Look, I want, I just want to take one year's break. I said, I'm just not ready right now. I want to take a break. And they say, Well, your break is either going to go back, be going back to school, or getting a job. And I

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said, Oh my goodness. Well, okay, what I'm due so I said, Okay, I'll get a job for a year and work and just still stay at home, and then I'll go to law school. So I went to the newspaper and I put in three, job applications. I put one into

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Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. I put one into Sears and Roebuck for they were training managers who are manager trainee of some program. There's something they were doing there. And I put in one to the Durham public safety, which

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was a police department, but we had a public safety concept. We were trained as both police and firefighters. So I put one into public safety, I put those three applications in, and the public safety called me first. So I went down for the interview and

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things like that, and went through the agility test, and that time young, I was in shape and everything. And. Down. So I graduated in May. In July, I was in the police academy. And, you know, fast forward 32 and a half years. I mean, I worked through

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the different ranks of the organization. Had a lot of different responsibilities in the organization. But through that, throughout that 32 and a half years, the jobs that I enjoyed most were the jobs that involved working with community.

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Yeah, one of some of the things that I find interesting is that listening to how you were raised, and it sounds like you had no other option but to serve based on your community, yeah, and that's why I said that was where we were raised. I

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mean, that's a wonderful thing that, I mean, that was it. And, you know, and I talked to people a lot about, you know, coming up in the bottom, because some days, you know, we're sitting around the house, and my daddy would say, Look, you know what

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we gonna eat today? And, you know, and he said, he would say, Oh, Miss this lady, Miss, Miss Lucille. Lucille Gregory had a had a store across the street, and she had bologna and sows meat and cheese, and, you know, all of those kinds of things,

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and as well as canned goods and things like that. And and my dad would say, look, here, take this, take this, this, this, this list, and go to miss Lucille and tell her, you know, I want to, you know, a pound of Bologna, whatever is on the

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list, and put it on my account. Oh, wow. And, and I would take it over there, and she would fill that list, and I bring those little things home. And whenever he got paid or whatever, he go over there and he would pay it up. But that

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was, again, that was community. And you know, the thing about that, and I talk about a lot is that growing up in the bottom, even though we it was a poor community, I mean, but at the same time, you had the haves and they had the have nots, because

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due to segregation, due to being able that your living communities, or the communities that you could live in, were limited, it calls the business owners, the preachers, the teachers, the mechanics, the you know, everybody lived together,

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but that was, that was the beauty of it, because that was our support system. So and everyone worked together, and everyone had something to give. So that goes back to how some of the things that you did as a

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police officer. You put emphasis on community policing and anti gang programs. You started the local Crime Stoppers program. You initiated Durham's participation a national night out, and you partnered with the North Carolina Child Response

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initiative so that village continues to follow you throughout your career, but you know, and I say that because that's all I know. You know, is again. You know my path and the travels, and my travels

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and what got me from the bottom to, you know, to where I am right now. So when I anyone asked me about community problems, anybody asked me about crime, I said, it goes back to community.

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So I don't want to overlook the fact that you were the police chief here for four years. Yes, what I'm hearing at that at the cross the view Steve Chalmers: is community, yes. And that was my that was my

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philosophy as as a police chief, is that, you know, there is a need for law enforcement, but the problems that we face cannot be enforced away. It cannot be policed away. So my philosophy and my tenure, not just as police chief, but once I was in

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a position to help create policies, procedures and identify direction for the organization. My direction and my philosophy says we are going to create as many intervention and prevention programs and provide many as many

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opportunities for people to change their lives as we're going to provide enforcement programs. We're going to provide a balance. We're not we're going to be truthfully, public servants, not police, but public servants. Community Policing was

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something that I really helped to develop in the organization to include public housing policing. And I actually had officers in every public housing community, and every month they would have to compile a report and present, you know what,

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activities. And one of the things I made it clear was that on your monthly report, I don't want to see anything about arrest. I don't want to see anything about how many people you put I want to see how many problems you solved, because you

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are now a part of that community, and your job is to go out there every day, walk amongst the people, talk amongst the people, identify what problems exist, and help them solve problems, whether it's a job or. Whether it has to do,

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you know, with with with recreational activity, whether it had to do with health, whatever the problems are, you connect them or help them get connected to resources and and help them to solve some of the problem, overcome some of those

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obstacles. Unknown: Was it a difficult process to get the officers to think in the way of community, where they were probably trained in another way of preventing crime, to just to get that

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process of engaging community. Oh yeah, you know, absolutely. And even as a sergeant, that was my philosophy. And I had some folk didn't want to work with under me as a, you know, as a sergeant, because they, they

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just, they just want the police. But some of them actually came around, but, but really, with with that philosophy, I had more that accepted it, that that did not, then did not, which means it caused a lot of them to be kind of feeling, you know,

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ostracized like dinosaurs, and understanding that this was the this was the culture of law enforcement. Now, this is what was happening across the country, and this is why you saw more African American as becoming police chiefs across

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the nation. Is because it was recognized that policing was not working, and that in order to actually bring about long term and permanent changes. First of all, you got to bring someone into the leadership role that understands how to actually

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impact community and who more so than people who grew up in those types of environment, because at that time, at age I was, if you were in your 30s, 40s or 50s, you probably came out of a low income community, and you came from one of those in kind of

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environments, and you already knew basically what, beyond policing, how to go out and relate to people, because that's where you came from and And that was really, that was the start of that, you know, because they realize it's that, and it's just

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like with, especially with African Americans going into the workforce and being given responsibilities we get, we get the responsibility. We get the chance when everybody else has failed, and they proven they can't get it done. Perfect way

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to put it, and they then they give it to you to fix it. Say, now you know, and I recognized that early on, you know, that I got my chance because they realized they don't have anybody that can get the job done, and that you have the wherewithal

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and the knowledge base and the background and understanding to create the programs to communicate with the people. And you know, as I used to talk with police officers, I said, Look, you know, when I used to work in the training academy, and I

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would teach in the during the during the academies, to train officers is not what talk to them about the role as a public servant, and understanding that that police hat is not the only hat that you wear that you have to realize that when you're

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responding to a call for service, when you get to that call, the response and the need that you are presented with when you get there determines which hat that you wear. Okay, okay, so this is a perfect segue to transition after your

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term as the chief of police into what you have been doing since then, the programs that you're involved in, you're still wearing that hat, not a police hat, gone back to that community hat, which is so needed now, but you're taking it in a, I guess,

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in a direction that is relevant to Today. Yeah, and, and almost back up and and move from the police chief role into what I'm actually doing right now, but and that was the beginning of some of that, not only with the

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community policing programs, but also White House police chiefs. I started in a nonprofit organization called Men of vision, where I work with the 100 Black Men of America, the triangle East chapter, and which is centered around mentoring and

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education for African American males. But I wanted to create something that would actually be be directed towards African American males, but those that were justice involved and gang involved, and so we came together with the city manager

00:29:50.500 - 00:30:04.140

office, and Patrick Baker was the city manager at that time. And we came together, and I brought men from the community together, and we created men of vision. It where I brought African American men together from the community to mentor and

00:30:04.140 - 00:30:20.900

support young men of color who were either justice involved or gang involved, and we basically would work with them to mentor, to provide job opportunities to do and encourage them and just be a support system around them. And that was we started that in

00:30:21.500 - 00:30:42.100

in 2004 and that was about, you know, a couple years after I became a police chief, and, and, and that was the beginning. And believe it or not, we decided to have a meeting to invite young men who were gang involved, who were justice involved, to come

00:30:42.400 - 00:30:56.620

and meet with us to talk about getting jobs and getting opportunities and moving away from what they were doing on the streets. And everyone said, nobody's going to come talk to the police and say I'm a gang member or all of this. And we

00:30:56.620 - 00:31:16.800

actually had it at Lion Park Community Community Center, and it was standing room only. But the most surprising thing about that was that we had young men to come from every part of town, and I mean, they gang involved. Now we're talking about Crips,

00:31:16.860 - 00:31:33.680

we're talking about Bloods, we're talking about all different gang affiliated individuals came into one room and we did not have any problems, because they said they came there for opportunities. They came there for jobs. Now

00:31:33.680 - 00:31:49.720

that sent a message to elected officials and everyone saying, Look these. You have to look beyond the symptoms that we're looking at and realizing what is really going on in your community. The lack of support, the lack of resources and

00:31:49.720 - 00:32:03.540

opportunity, is what's driving a lot of the problems that we face. And right now, through from 2004 2005 people that we actually help work with and get jobs. Are still working some with the city of Durham, that

00:32:03.540 - 00:32:13.620

was one of the questions. How did they filter through the system? Yeah, Steve Chalmers: okay. And some that we worked as gang members are now community activists that are in the community work and

00:32:13.620 - 00:32:24.380

doing different things to help move people, you know. And the thing I'm saying, you know, I'm not asking you to give up gang affiliate. I'm saying, look, let's stop the violence. First of all, let's stop killing each other, and let's start working

00:32:24.440 - 00:32:39.860

to kind of identify what we need to do. So our men of vision, I worked with that right on through right after I retired, and we then moved that same program, and we focused then after I retired, in one community, which was the

00:32:39.860 - 00:32:53.500

McDougall terrace public housing community, and we went in there as an organization, and we said, we're just going to focus on the community. We started a youth program for kids, for 13 to 18 and to kind of get them involved. And that was a great

00:32:53.500 - 00:33:06.240

program. We took them on, you know, took them on one trip to Atlanta, and the parents were more excited about going on the trip than the kids, and which, again, speaks to some of the things that we did, you know, within communities, because a

00:33:06.240 - 00:33:21.080

lot of folk have not had those experiences, and working with Durham Tech and North Carolina Central to help provide educational opportunities and just but again, just bringing the resources and support, again, the village, bringing the

00:33:21.080 - 00:33:34.040

support systems that I grew up with, even though we were poor and pretty much most of the people around had limited resources, but coming together and pooling those resources and support it in a supportive way, you can really make some things

00:33:34.040 - 00:33:50.800

happen. I always call that my stone soup, your stone soup, my stone soup, which was a story that I saw when I was about nine years old. It was on Captain Kangaroo about soldiers that were actually returning in the olden days, home from war, and

00:33:50.800 - 00:34:03.240

they were walking, of course, and they would go from one village to the other. The people being poor in those villages would see them coming, and they would hide all of the food and things, because they only had enough food to feed their own

00:34:03.240 - 00:34:15.240

families. And the soldiers knew that what to expect when they got to the village. And so they say, Yeah, we understand you don't have anything, but we just want to have somewhere to kind of rest for the night, and then, you know, we'll be on our way

00:34:15.240 - 00:34:26.120

tomorrow. But we've learned a lot since we've been off to war. We learned how to make stone soup. And the people say, Well, what stone soup? Yeah. And they say, well, we can show you how to make it. And they say, and you can feed everybody. They

00:34:26.120 - 00:34:39.500

say, Okay. They say, Well, get us the largest cattle that you have. And, you know, fill it with water, put it over the fire and bring it to a boil. Go and find us three of the largest, smoothest stones you can find. Clean those up, real good, and

00:34:39.500 - 00:34:50.500

put them into the boiling water. So they the people, everybody from the village, came around to start watch what was going on. And they they put, did everything that soldiers told them, they put. And everybody stood there and watched the

00:34:50.500 - 00:35:05.640

water ball and the stones and the suit and and one put the ladle in. And he tasted a little bit. He said, You know, this will really be good if we had one here. Of cabbage. And one of the people said, I think I have one at home. So one person went

00:35:05.640 - 00:35:19.560

and got a head of cabbage. They cut that cabbage up, and they put that in the water and they taste it again. They say, you know, if we just had a little side of meat or something to add a little flavor to this. But eventually, a long story short,

00:35:20.160 - 00:35:40.540

eventually, everyone went home and brought something to put in that pot, and at the end of the day, they had the biggest pot of soup, and they fed the entire entire community, the entire village, which goes to show that what you have control of or

00:35:40.540 - 00:35:56.440

within your within your own home, where may be barely enough to feed you, but when you bring the everything together, you can provide. You can feed the masses. That's a beautiful analogy. And when the soldiers left on, the villagers were so

00:35:56.440 - 00:36:18.300

ecstatic and say, Thank you so much, you know for coming in and helping us know how to learn how to make stone soup, we'll never be hungry again, and not so. So what I realize is that this speaks to feeding the soul in more ways than one, spiritually

00:36:18.840 - 00:36:36.980

community wise, I mean, in so many different things, in so many different levels, and I would tell that story, and I'm saying that's my philosophy, that's what I grew up with, is that in the bottom we made Stone soup, you did and and born to do

00:36:36.980 - 00:36:53.020

this. And you know, as a police chief, as a police chief, I went out and spoke to every organization that would give me come out for your lunch, for your civic club meeting, whatever I had my executive assistant, I say, book me with

00:36:53.020 - 00:37:08.040

every organization. They need to understand my philosophy. They need to understand that what we're dealing with crime ain't just my job, that it's all of our job, and everyone has a role to play. And I went out and, believe it or not, from 2001

00:37:09.720 - 00:37:29.000

2002 people in the heard about Stone soup, because I say, this is not rocket science. This is not complicated. It's simple, but it's so simple because I say, even before we came to this country, we had a village. We were brought to this country, we

00:37:29.000 - 00:37:47.500

relied on a village, we relied on the elders, we relied on the mothers, we relied on the fathers for the strength. We relied on everyone had a role to play in the village that even took us through slavery, through Jim Crow, through, you know,

00:37:47.560 - 00:38:02.760

every aspect of growth and accomplishments that we've had as people. We had a village when I was going coming up in the bottom. We had a village when we walked around in little kids up and down those dirt streets who sat up on those porches, the

00:38:02.760 - 00:38:18.060

aunts and aunts, the elders, the elders, and looked over and was Unknown: and they were police. They could police and they could they could tell a child that was belonged to the next door neighbor. Why do that so? And we respected that. Yes, the

00:38:18.060 - 00:38:33.440

fathers, my father, he received his wisdom from the older people in the community. They were the strength of the community, but they weren't necessarily the wisdom of the community. So everybody had a role to play and see that is, is the only thing

00:38:33.440 - 00:38:47.140

that we are saying, is what we are doing right now is, again, now moving forward. You know, we worked in the mcdougald terrace areas, and we worked with until covid, and then everything started to kind of break down then, and everybody, you know,

00:38:47.140 - 00:39:01.740

said, look, it's time to kind of go home. And we did some things remotely, but, you know, we didn't that was and actually we had men of vision, but we also created a women of vision, and we had a lot of women from the community came to help the young

00:39:01.740 - 00:39:15.240

ladies understand about being women and being mothers and ladies in the community, and what that needed to look like. So again, just coming together, building that vintage, because we didn't have to go live in McDougall terrace, what we had

00:39:15.240 - 00:39:40.160

to do is come back in and create that concept, create that environment where you had a support system, okay, and things like that, and and that's what we did now moving fast forward with after covid, I had a call from Elaine O'Neal at that time,

00:39:40.160 - 00:39:54.100

she was preparing to run for a mayor, and she called and we worked on a lot of things together, you know, doing her tenure as judge and and working, and she's worked strongly in the community, strong community advocate. And she said, Look,

00:39:54.280 - 00:40:04.020

Steve, I'm running for mayor. And she said, Look, violent crime is going to be, you know, number one on my you know, that's my platform. Home, that's going to be my focus, and things like that. And I said, Well, Elaine, you know me, I work with

00:40:04.020 - 00:40:17.100

you. And she said, I just want to help me create something that would address violent crime. I said, But you know, you know my history, I can't focus on crime. I got to focus on the root causes of crime. And I've had this model that I, you know,

00:40:17.100 - 00:40:30.740

been working. I said, Look, I know what we need to do, but at the same time, if you can support that, we can try to kind of come together. So she introduced me to Dr Henry McCoy, who was at that time down at with the entrepreneur program

00:40:30.740 - 00:40:50.620

down at NCCU, and his sister, who is my current partner, Lisa La Jones. Lisa is a 30 year retired veteran of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and she retired as a warden. And so we met and we talked. And so it was decided that Lisa and I would

00:40:50.620 - 00:41:07.560

actually work together to kind of create, you know, create this initiative, or name of the initiative, Hayti reborn justice movement. Her brother, Henry McCoy, who is her youngest younger brother, was actually had created Hey Ty reborn, which

00:41:07.560 - 00:41:23.840

was a revitalization plan. So we actually came under his umbrella with Hey Ty reborn, and added justice movement to that, to actually go out and address not just criminal justice, but just justice in general, and and this is what we created as part of

00:41:23.840 - 00:41:51.160

hey, tie reborn. So our focus was again to create, again that village concept, but also to focus on addressing change, institutional change as relates to how people are served. And so we started to work to put that together. And I'm thinking this

00:41:51.160 - 00:42:10.440

was 2022, when we actually started working on that. And and she and I, we, the city gave us, and the county came together and gave us a little seed grant of about $50,000 to organize, and we were able to work through the prince Hall Masonic Order. They

00:42:10.440 - 00:42:26.600

gave us a room in their building to actually put this together. They didn't charge us in the rent or anything, and we just sat there again, community coming together, and we built this with no salaries or anything for for about a year

00:42:26.600 - 00:42:39.980

and a half that she and I worked on this just from the heart to kind of create this. And once we started to get some funding, we started to actually bring together some staff. And we had volunteer staff initially to help us bring together some

00:42:39.980 - 00:42:53.260

retirees and things like that. Can you walk me through an example of how this worked? Does it affect the community and individual, or is it a collaboration of two? Well, one of the things that we recognize is that, first of all,

00:42:53.620 - 00:43:07.680

we did not want to replicate anything that already existed. We have so many nonprofit organizations and that you can't even name them all. You can't even get them. Can't even profit. Probably all, list them all, and all many of them, many

00:43:07.680 - 00:43:22.940

of them, are doing fantastic work in the community. What we found out, what we realized, and had realized for a long time, is they're fragmented, they're isolated, and they work in silos. And so we recognized that Durham was rich in resources,

00:43:23.060 - 00:43:43.180

and one of the things that we needed to do was to build an organization that could actually build a bring together organizations to work together collaboratively, and break down those Walls, that those silos. So what we did was basically

00:43:43.180 - 00:43:55.720

through meetings that we had with the community from people who were from the underserved communities, black and brown, justice involved gang, we brought them all together and said, Look, you know, and to find out, pretty much what

00:43:56.080 - 00:44:05.820

you bought them all together, you found these individuals. And said, Let's get together. Let's hash Steve Chalmers: this out and talk. Yeah, we had a lot of people working at judge. Pat Evans, who was a sitting judge

00:44:05.820 - 00:44:20.720

at the time, she was part of that, Elaine O'Neil, before she became mayor, you know, while she was what, she was a part of that, because we had been doing this work even before then and but we've been having these meetings, so we already had the

00:44:20.720 - 00:44:32.600

trust of the community, from what we had been doing in mcdougald terrace and what we had done with me in a vision while I was even police chief. So only thing we had to do put the word out they were coming. But basically they were saying

00:44:32.600 - 00:44:48.520

is, and it looked as peers that the problems and obstacles they face and the resources they need fell in about nine different categories. They needed criminal justice support. They needed they needed jobs. They needed economic support. They needed

00:44:48.520 - 00:45:05.640

educational support, health and wellness support, housing support, recreation support, spiritual support. And so we basically, I. Identified all these different areas. So what we're saying is that okay, what we need to do now is start to

00:45:05.640 - 00:45:20.540

build collaborations and coalitions in all of these nine areas. Then how do we do that? We went to the existing programs and organizations that were already out there, and we started bringing them together and saying, let's come together.

00:45:20.540 - 00:45:32.960

Let's work. We brought the criminal justice community together and say, You're not, we're not bringing you here for enforcement. And saying, what happened to this individual? Probation, parole, the da's office, the judges, law

00:45:32.960 - 00:45:45.700

enforcement, and saying, what do we do for these individuals that serve their time? They're coming back and reentering, they need to get the driver's license, or they need to get an expungement, or they're facing some other things. They're coming in

00:45:45.700 - 00:45:59.680

through probation and parole. How do we work together to actually support them from a criminal justice perspective? No, get out of jail free cards. No, we're turning our heads to act. But if you really seriously want to change your life and and

00:45:59.680 - 00:46:11.640

get on the right foot. How do we support that? Unknown: So my question is, you've got these pillars and you've got all these phenomenal people that came together. What I want to get is, How do you identify the people that come to

00:46:11.640 - 00:46:21.800

you for these services? I think that's the important thing to get. Steve Chalmers: Okay? And again, when we start to talk about all these different organizations, we also start to look at how

00:46:21.800 - 00:46:33.800

many outreach organizations do we have out here? We have a multitude of organizations that basically serve underserved people or people facing obstacles. So our thing was to actually also to bring them together, get them on the same

00:46:33.800 - 00:46:46.300

page, and say, look for these individuals. What we are trying to do, we are building the coalitions. We are building the partnerships and what we want to do, and we're building a process to actually work through them. We just want to try to channel

00:46:46.300 - 00:47:05.520

them, identify one location that these individuals. So what we did, we created one of the first group of individuals that we actually brought we hired were justice involved, okay, and and some of them are still with us. The first one that we hired is

00:47:05.520 - 00:47:24.080

still with us. Steven Shealy was an individual that I had met when I was a police chief. That was he was a drug dealer, oh, okay, in the Cornwallis road public housing community, and he had a run in with some police officers and and he escaped from

00:47:24.080 - 00:47:35.480

him, and he wanted to turn himself in, but he called his lawyer, who was Butch Williams, James, James Williams, and said, Look, I need I'm gonna have to turn myself in, because I know they're gonna get me, but I'm not gonna turn myself in unless,

00:47:35.540 - 00:47:46.360

unless you bring the chief down there, I turn myself into the chief. So it was a weekend Butch called me because we knew each other, we worked together on some things. But say, look, Steve, what are you doing? At that time, I was getting ready

00:47:46.360 - 00:47:58.900

to get on my motorcycle and go ride. He said, Can you look? And he told me, I rode my motorcycle to be police headquarters. Butch brought Stephen down, and he turned himself in and but we went up to my office, and we sat and we talked about the

00:47:58.900 - 00:48:10.680

situation. He said, Chief, I know everybody know what I'm doing, but I wasn't doing anything anything that time, and I just didn't feel like it's fair for them to risk me just because of what I do, you know, and they have really, you know,

00:48:10.680 - 00:48:22.940

I wasn't doing anything at that time and everything, and we kind of developed a relationship. And I and Stephen went on to continue to do some things, but he started, and we were running each other. He started to get his life in order and doing some

00:48:22.940 - 00:48:37.040

things. But fast forward, when we were getting doing, hey, tie reborn justice movement, Steven called one of the police captains and say, Man, I heard chief Skinner start a new program. And he said, Yeah. He said, Give me his phone number.

00:48:37.160 - 00:48:47.920

So the captain called me and said, Look, Steven wants your number. So Steven called me. He gave him I said, give him a number. Stephen called me. Say, cheap this, Steve. I said, Yeah, how you doing? He said, man. He said, I'm doing good. He had a

00:48:47.920 - 00:48:57.760

job. He was working, and he said, I hear you getting ready to start a new program working in the community. I said, Yes, Steven, I am. He said, Well, I just content. I'm getting ready to quit my job because I'm gonna work for you. Oh, wow, yeah. So

00:48:57.760 - 00:49:13.080

I said, Well, Steven, hold up. Don't quit your job yet, because we don't have any money and But fast forward again. Once we got funding, Stephen was the first person I hired. Steven had, and so Stevens job was, was actually outreach going into the

00:49:13.080 - 00:49:21.980

community, because we'll send the people in the community that that know the community, yes, that trust the community. Look, we got something going on right now, if you want to change your life,

00:49:22.280 - 00:49:35.960

Unknown: this is why was you this. This is what life. This Steve Chalmers: is what so basically, they were basically ones that were bringing them in. And we still, we had about three, we had three individuals from the community that actually

00:49:35.960 - 00:49:47.680

lived their life was in that lifestyle that basically, and they were outreach, and they were working with the other outreach organization, but they were actually in the community. So what we did is, then had that, we set up a one stop shop

00:49:48.580 - 00:50:03.360

see, and when they when they come in, they will be met with a care manager who would do an intake. But, but again, our position is that we want to connect you. With these we got these resources. We want to connect you, but we want you to

00:50:03.360 - 00:50:17.280

be successful. So how do we make certain that if we get you a job, you're going to you're ready for the job, and you're going to keep the job. So we decided, okay, so we so we put some things in front of just giving you a job, which means

00:50:17.280 - 00:50:27.320

the first thing is the intake, just to identify with the care manager, who you are, what you've been doing, through what your obstacles are, what you're looking to do, and based on all the information and the resources, what they do, they

00:50:27.320 - 00:50:40.720

create an individual plan for each individual. The next step is that everyone that comes in and they want to be a part of that, they have to get a comprehensive clinical assessment. And what is meant that is a basically

00:50:40.720 - 00:50:55.960

psychological evaluation that we contract with people in the community again, which is the thing that we the whole person, yeah, so they have to sit with that person doing in do an analysis and understand, because we need to know if there are

00:50:55.960 - 00:51:08.820

some deep rooted situation that we need to deal with. We need to find out if there's some substance abuse, if there are some things in the past, but what we need to do is understand what we need to do to help fix you, not just to connect you to

00:51:08.820 - 00:51:25.460

resources, which has happened in the past and you then failed again. We want to get you ready for to for growth. The next step was that we realized that a lot of need upscale now understand that we created an organization that we said we're not going to

00:51:25.460 - 00:51:38.240

be service providers. You got enough service providers out there. We need organizers and we need connectors. That is the job of, Hey Ty reborn justice movement is to build that one stop shop, that support system that would basically get you to

00:51:38.240 - 00:51:53.200

where it is that you need to do as we did in community, but instead of giving you a referral list to where you go, we build the partnerships, the relationships, and we pass you off to our partners, who would then do what they did need to

00:51:53.320 - 00:52:09.720

do, then they pass you off. So it's always almost like a relay race. You will pass in the baton. You're not throwing it you're not sending people out to actually get them involved in going to places and being and having to deal with processes

00:52:09.900 - 00:52:24.980

that are so confusing that it's going to frustrate you and cause you to go back home and just give up again. Unknown: So this is so important. I want to double back on this again. I need your organization. How do I walk

00:52:24.980 - 00:52:35.840

through it? This is so important. Yeah, okay. And again, the first thing is that with what we are right now, we've been out there long enough with a lot of people going on the website, and they just saying, I want, I want to

00:52:35.840 - 00:52:50.860

be served. And we look at it every day also, again, we have Department of Social Services sent people to us because we partnered with them and done presentations to them so they understand who we are. Probation and Parole sent people to us. We

00:52:50.860 - 00:53:07.560

had one young man just come out of prison for after 40 years, 40 years, went to DSS to try to get services. And he, I mean for it, they saying, Go to Hayti reborn justice movement. Nine o'clock in the morning he was he was walking it that next morning he

00:53:07.560 - 00:53:22.280

was walking in the door. He is now gainfully employed. Has his own apartment. Fern wants us to come look at his place, because now we are his family. We are his support system. When you walk in our door on the wall, the first thing you see is a

00:53:22.280 - 00:53:40.540

sign, which says, Welcome home, because this is what we want this to represent. We want this to represent home. We want us to represent your family, your support system. And two years in, people are still who came in two years ago are still anything

00:53:40.540 - 00:53:53.080

come up. They're calling us. We had one the other day. Say, look, my dad died. I had to get this funeral stuff done. You know, I'm on disability right now. They've gone through the bridge program. We're working with them. They're doing good.

00:53:53.080 - 00:54:06.540

They say, but look, I'm showing them my rent. I got this. So the first thing we do is find organizations out there to help pay rent. And we sent we connecting with them. So again, we'll connect us. We find what the resources are. We connect.

00:54:06.780 - 00:54:22.940

We got all of her money off $300 yesterday morning, I signed a check for $300 for the rest of that So, but, but again, these organizations by word of mouth. Now people are actually coming through us, through the website, through coming

00:54:23.960 - 00:54:34.940

community umbrella, yes, exactly, yeah, you build an umbrella around the community, with all these internal organizations can help you get on your path to recovery or to get ahead

00:54:34.940 - 00:54:49.060

whatever, whatever your needs are. We basically meet them and but we do it in one place, and we build that plan. And again, every individual gets a tailor made plan specifically for them. And again, after that assessment is done, we do a criminal

00:54:49.060 - 00:55:00.660

history check, also a background check, because a lot of them will come in and tell you some things in the background, but it won't tell you everything that will not actually eliminate you or disqualify you. Because we do reentry, we. Work with people

00:55:00.780 - 00:55:12.120

that's been to prison for for murder, for all these different things, but we want to, we want to know who we're dealing with. So we do all of these things, and then the further up skill them to get them prepared, as some of them do not even have

00:55:12.120 - 00:55:27.560

GEDs or high school education. So that's just when we partner with Durham Tech, and they built a six week course for us to then send individuals to to get them up skill, because some of them hadn't been in school in a long time. Some of them, as I said,

00:55:27.560 - 00:55:45.340

hadn't even completed high school. Why they're there to get a GED. And they go, they get some computer skills, they get some communication classes. And while they're there for those six weeks, we pay them or give them $15 an hour to help support

00:55:45.340 - 00:55:56.980

some of the needs that they have, and to kind of, and again, to make certain that they are encouraged. And saying, Well, look, I can't go because I make sure they feel like they're still a contributing part of

00:55:56.980 - 00:56:06.420

society, right? Steve Chalmers: And they can't take it out, you know? Saying, I got to go out here and get a job. I got to go. But $15 dignity is some dignity, and they appreciate we give them $15

00:56:06.660 - 00:56:23.540

an hour. We give them we give them lunch every day at Durham Tech, and we give them $25 a week for travel while they are there at Durham Tech. At the end of that, they have a graduation exercise. The mayor has spoken at graduation, and um the city

00:56:23.540 - 00:56:37.040

and the county manager has spoken. Zach Hawkins, our representative has spoken. Representative Valerie Fushi sends staff and has also presented congressional certificates to the graduates. So these are folk who have some

00:56:37.040 - 00:56:54.520

of them never graduated from anything, but now and is, we have a student speaker. It's a big graduation exercise, but one of the things that we did not figure was going to happen that now we got them upskill, now we can go help you get this job.

00:56:54.520 - 00:57:14.340

Duke is one of our partners that provide jobs at the hospital and and the university. The city is one of the partners the airport. So we have all of these partners out here who who saying we'll get job H to go transport company that's one of our, you

00:57:14.340 - 00:57:29.420

know, employers. And these folks are saying, the reason they are, they're focusing and they're working with us is because we are just not sending them people. We are getting them stabilized and upstairs, and we give them no support system so

00:57:29.480 - 00:57:44.560

people. So what we're finding is that there's help and support out there, but they're also looking to see to make certain that you know we're going to be okay with the people that you're sending to us, and that's one of the things that we try to

00:57:44.560 - 00:57:58.600

guarantee, which we can't always guarantee, but we at least we can show you that we are doing the due diligence to make certain. Because most of them saying we just want good employees, the criminal history, a lot of don't make it. Really

00:57:58.600 - 00:58:10.500

make it. We want good employees, and we believe in second chances. We believe sometimes even third, fourth and fifth chance. But we need to see what's happening with these people since that, since they made the mistake or the last

00:58:10.500 - 00:58:25.880

mistake, and to where they are right now, you know. So that is pretty much what we're doing. So right now we have, we set up apprenticeship programs. But again, the thing I get back to what I was saying is that the surprising thing is that when it

00:58:25.880 - 00:58:43.180

came after graduation, you know, they're saying we want to stay in school. Wow. Okay, so now we have them in probably all of the trade programs down there. We've just finished graduating a public health class down there at Durham Tech. We got them an

00:58:43.180 - 00:59:00.720

electrical electrician program at Durham Tech, the plumbing program, nursing and Durham Tech has been a great partner, because they are basically using their own funding and support. They getting them caught with grants, anything they could do,

00:59:00.840 - 00:59:14.100

but we are partnering to help to get these folk motivated. We've just said something, we got one now that's going to the CDL program with grants vanville, which the new which is our newest partner, because Durham Tech does not have a CDL

00:59:14.100 - 00:59:28.760

program. And so, so all of these things again, and people are, and they are so excited about being a part of what we are doing with hay tire, reborn justice movement, advanced Granville, wow, and but, but the thing is, is, is that this is

00:59:28.760 - 00:59:42.700

what we are doing. We have the apprenticeship. We have people out there say, look, we'll train some of these people while they're going to school. We got people in electrician program. They have not failed a course. Because again, so again, only

00:59:42.820 - 00:59:51.940

thing we're doing is recreating the people said, oh, man, this is fantastic. This is fantastic. How you think about this? That's what I grew Unknown: up with. This is a great place to stop. I love your

00:59:51.940 - 01:00:07.740

excitement. I I wanted to do this to talk about you and your your your service as a police officer. But what I ended up. Getting was a person who was born and raised through community, has lived through community and has given back to

01:00:07.740 - 01:00:14.160

community, and you are community. And I thank you so much for doing this for me. Steve Chalmers: Absolutely, absolutely have a great day. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.