Memoirs of a Hoodstar: America’S Nightmare: Young, Black and Misunderstood

By D. Durand Hall

In 2008, the United States Supreme Court ruled Californias prison system as unconstitutionally cruel and overcrowded. The decision mandated the downsizing of a prison system that had risen to become the largest in America. How did California become the king of imprisonment, and what prompted the mass incarceration of a generation of minority males?

Memoirs of a Hoodstar is a real look at one mans life as he goes from a serious hustler to prison inmate. Jamal ends up behind bars after living a life of crime, and although he deserves some punishment, he soon begins to realize the huge number of African American males behind bars is more than punishment: its a political game and hes just one of the pawns paying a priceless price.

Greedy men like Big Al make loads of dough on the California penal system, and nobodys stopping them. Jamal hopes that the madness will stop, but who will stand up for prison inmates? D.Durand Hall provides the uncut truth behind the barbaric imprisonment of Californias notorious department of Corrections but also reveals how ex-cons can turn their lives around.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532020148

D. Durand Hall

D. Durand Hall is an African American businessman and rehabilitated citizen. During his incarceration, he studied over seven hundred books to understand the legal and cultural ramifications of imprisonment on African American men and their families. As founder and CEO of Urban Multimedia Communications, LLC, he is now committed to creating platforms that inform and promote the minority struggle to the world.

Book preview

MEMOIRS OF A

HOODSTAR

AMERICA’S NIGHTMARE:

YOUNG, BLACK AND MISUNDERSTOOD

D. DURAND HALL

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MEMOIRS OF A HOODSTAR

AMERICA’S NIGHTMARE: YOUNG,

BLACK AND MISUNDERSTOOD

Copyright © 2017 D. DURAND HALL.

Photos by El Williams of Magen That PhotograFx

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-2015-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2014-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017906281

iUniverse rev. date: 08/31/2017

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1 California … December 24, 1997… 2:11 p.m.

CHAPTER 2 A fighter always finds a way to win a fight

CHAPTER 3 Cocaine blessings 1980s

CHAPTER 4 A hustler is born

CHAPTER 5 Curb $ervin’

CHAPTER 6 Grand jury indictment!

CHAPTER 7 Big Al’s big vision

CHAPTER 8 The aftermath

Chapter 9 Unexpected Goodbyes… Going back to Cali!

CHAPTER 10 The love of the past will strangle any possibility for tomorrow

CHAPTER 11 Home sweet home … but if they only knew

CHAPTER 12 Girls … Girls … late nights … and girls

CHAPTER 13 Finally grown, on his own with a birthday cake

CHAPTER 14 The cub has grown into a lion … Sacramento, California … 1990

CHAPTER 15 Stress, bills, money, and licks

CHAPTER 16 Back in the desert

CHAPTER 17 Going back to Cali …

CHAPTER 18 Spring 1994 … Wednesday, 9:08 a.m. Grand Conference Suite 106 Governor’s Office @ State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA

CHAPTER 19 New responsibilities … new look on life Colossal City Southern California

CHAPTER 20 Deep wounds can create monsters

CHAPTER 21 Free at last

CHAPTER 22 Back on the grind

CHAPTER 23 Outlaws - nigga on the run

CHAPTER 24 Feeln like an outlaw!

CHAPTER 25 Modern day lynching - kangaroo courts and snitches trying to take me down

CHAPTER 26 Scrambling for survival

CHAPTER 27 School is now in session

CHAPTER 28 Crime, punishment, law, the court$ and money

CHAPTER 29 The good and the bad

CHAPTER 30 The Patriot Act … A Gift Horse.

CHAPTER 31 The shit hits the fan! … Feds move in Sacramento County and surrounding areas Sacramento, CA

CHAPTER 32 … And the strong shall survive and prosper!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my Daughters…

I love you all ways, always.

...Dad

First and foremost, above it all the Author would like to give a grateful Thank You to the Creator. You always keep your word! You have taken a lost and rebellious soul and shined your light on me in my darkness when the world had given up. Thank you for your mercy that saved me from my own foolishness.

The Author of this book would also like to personally send a special thank you to the following people for their various support. Some have been emotional supporters in the darkest of hours when doubt and frustration weighed the heaviest; others have fed, cooked, and loved me when no one else would. Lastly, those that opened not only their hearts but their wallets to my struggle….I thank you all.

Granma Bertha Johnson, Maurice L. Hall, Sr., Lita Hall, Granma Cole, Grandpa Cole, Uncle Will, Aunt DeeDee, Aunt Eileen, Rev. Oralando Hall, Don Hall, Uncle Mo, Aunt Vanessa, Grandpa Lawrence Blackwell, Uncle Doll, Josiah Williams, Cynthia Hollon, Latrice Anderson, Serene Johnson, Durand K. Hall Sr., Marcel Hall, Karina Hall, Shaniya Hall, Desiree Hall, Isaac Prince Hall, Julian Hall, Deon Hart, Zavier Hall, Sean Burney, Brenda Hart, Lisa Wells, Aunt Lavenia, Phillip Johnson, Mrs. Poornsook Johnson, Aunt Frances, Aunt Faye, Uncle Jim, Uncle Jesse, Uncle Jr. and Aunt Bonnie, Aunt Rosie, Hunk, Cousin Sunny, Latanya Gilmore, Big L, Cheryl and Willis Lawson and all the countless friends and family I failed to mention.

Shout Outs – To my true comrades that tought me how to survive in those synthetic concrete jungles – Salute! Gone but never forgotten ...Young Rida, Toots, Sneacc, Tone, Insane, Lil Slim, Temula Waidi, Akil, Abkar, Mustafa, Hakim, Amir, Imam, Salim,Van Duke, Bug, KevyKev, Mouse, Blink, Frog, Rahim, Cysco, Young Ran, Bandit, Ant, and all the other fallen soldiers caught in the machine. I salute you all.

Thank you to all the men and women who put their effort, time and skill into the production of this book. Thank you for working so hard to help make my dreams come true. I salute you.

THIS STORY IN INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS!

(the names, characters, places have been changed to protect the innocent)

CHAPTER 1

CALIFORNIA … DECEMBER

24, 1997… 2:11 P.M.

Your Honor. In the matter of the People of the State of California versus Jamal Isaiah Jackson and Jahred Able Jackson we the jury find….

Here he was, twenty-seven years old. Father of two young daughters. Black. Male. Standing next to his younger brother. Both gang affiliated and seconds away from their fate….

…Guilty!

The jury foreman, a proud white man in his mid-forties, never stuttered or hesitated in his reading of the verdict. His voice strong. Loud. Clear. His words very precise, but as Jamal stood there awaiting his destiny, it seemed like time stopped rolling. It may have only been seconds ... maybe minutes, but it was long enough for this young black man to remember everything that brought him to this point of life. It wasn’t as if he faced death, but his life’s memories came rolling over him like a suffocating cloud. As the court awaited the jury’s final verdict, Jamal sat eyes wide shut against what was to come as his mind flashed back…

It had been an up and down experience since birth. Unmarried African American teenage parents gave him life in 1970. Younger brother Jahred would follow two years later. Southern California swelled with growth in a period of historical, social change in the United States. His mother, Shelia Carter, was only 16, while his father, George Jackson, was 17. Each parent had lived in their maternal grandmothers’ households about a half mile apart in the megalopolis that stretched from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border.

Their story was like many others. Both of Jamal’s parents had been raised by their maternal grandmothers when their birth mothers needed time to get themselves together. Living conditions for the parents were strained and overcrowded as households were shared by cousins, uncles, aunts, and other relatives as they waited impatiently for the moment they could break out on their own, independent and finally grown. It did not take long for these two young lives with similar backgrounds to meet. Out of Shelia and George’s teenage lust, Jamal Jackson was born in October 1970 in sunny Southern California. The sunny skies that made Southern California so attractive to millions did not always exist in Jamal’s young life.

It was not uncommon in the 1960s and early 1970s for young people to have children themselves. Essentially, children having children. Following the social norms of the time, young African Americans engaged in sex and thus, often had children out of wedlock while still just teenagers themselves. Jamal and Jahred’s parents were no exception. Neither parent was into the social or political scene of the time. There had never been any talk of participating in the civil rights activities or the black liberation movements of their era. No, they were just two young kids so caught in their own individual struggles that they couldn’t find the time or the interest to take up larger issues.

They just wanted to get through school, make some money, and live the American dream. George, tall in stature and athletic in build, had dreams of a singing career. Shelia short, exceptionally pretty with long black hair, became involved with a government program that trained minorities for entry-level jobs in local banks. Jahred was born two years after Jamal’s birth, but by then George and Shelia had separated. This left Shelia pregnant and caring for both boys. George was in the streets doing what young teenage men do at age eighteen.

From the beginning, Jamal’s existence caused some turmoil that he later accepted as a sign of the life that was to come. With George out of the picture, his family decided since Jamal was George’s only child at the time, they should take and raise him themselves. They are a light mulatto group with a heritage of mixed ethnicity ranging from native American Indian, Italian, and African American. Shelia Carter, on the other hand, came from a dark-skinned proud African American family of Texas sharecroppers and field hands with very little formal education.

In fact, Jamal’s maternal grandmother, Grandma B, was a domestic worker who cooked, cleaned and washed clothes for middle-class white families. From her roots in Texas, she moved the family west in 1965, stopping for two years in Phoenix. When the family finally departed for Southern California, Grandma B’s oldest daughter, herself a single mother, remained in Arizona. As the sole provider for her 13 children and a growing number of grandchildren, Grandma B found work for her services in Colossus County where white suburbanites would need help performing mundane chores of the household.

The move to California was prompted by the promise of more stable and higher paying employment. By 1967, she had relocated her extended family to the low-income area of Southern California. The family had very little money but were rich in love of family.

George’s family consisted primarily of working African Americans who had settled in California in the early 1960s when Jamal’s great grandfather, Isaiah Black, settled near the Marine base where he was stationed. After his military retirement, he worked and retired from the U.S. Postal Service. His family included three daughters and three sons. George was a grandchild.

So, while his parents shared similar family issues these two families were much different, and their differences clashed over who would raise Jamal.

As the story was told, George phoned Shelia to tell her he would be coming to get Jamal for the weekend. Shelia, still only 17 years old, felt she needed some R&R, so she quickly agreed. Everything went well until George took Lil’ J (Jamal’s family nickname) to the Jackson family home. There it was decided Jamal would stay permanently until he finished his formal education.

Shelia’s family didn’t agree, and the problems began. After a few hours of heated phone conversations, Jamal’s maternal Uncle Melvin got involved. After hearing the bickering go on for some hours, Melvin grabbed his revolver and left for the Jackson family home. Grandma B and other family members followed closely. During the confrontation at the Jackson home, the intoxicated Uncle Melvin convinced the Jacksons to return the child to his mother. The dispute created a rift between the two families that would never get resolved.

Life for Shelia, Jahred, and Jamal soon stabilized into the typical single parent home. They moved from one low-income housing or cheap apartment to another as Shelia struggled to provide. They were always on county aide. To them, this was a normal life, and they were relatively happy.

Jamal’s father had found new interest to occupy time in his young life as he pursued a career in entertainment. He traveled with his bandmates performing shows in small black owned clubs throughout the southwest states in search of landing that big music label contract. The group really began to develop a following in the early 1970s as the public devoured any sound that replicated the soul of the people. Everything seemed to settle until George’s brother, Jamal, was murdered by the police during the attempted robbery of a convenience store.

George was the oldest of five children born to Lisa and George Senior. George Junior was the oldest, followed by Marcus, Jamal, Oscar and Vivica, the only daughter in the lot. They were all close growing up but chose to run in different circles.

George was an aspiring singer/entertainer and self-confessed ladies man. Marcus was the athlete of the family. He lost himself in scholastic sports, later earning All-City honors in basketball for Valley of the City High. Jamal was the hood of the group. Somehow, he got involved in a robbery scheme to hit a local convenience store. He was shot several times with a 12-gauge shotgun by a police officer during the attempt. It happened on the same day he had visited Sheila’s small apartment near the center of town to spend time with his nephew. He was shot in the back by a city police officers only a few hours later and died on the scene. He was 16 years old. Young Jamal was a year and a half when his namesake was killed. The murder of a family member devastated the Jackson clan.

The untimely death of Uncle Jamal affected his family drastically. Jamal’s paternal grandmother, Lisa, filed a civil suit for wrongful death seeking retribution for her family’s pain and suffering.The family hired an unknown attorney who would later gain national fame for his role in representing Rodney King in the event that was the catalyst to the 1992 L.A. riots. Despite the public outcry from minorities in the community, the case against the police department did not resolve favorably for the Jackson family. After an internal investigation, like most accusations of alleged police brutality, the officers’ actions were deemed in compliance with department policies. The officer was exonerated. Just like that the pain and loss of a young family member was dismissed as insignificant. Just like that the life and death of another young, black male was dismissed by the authorities as irrelevant. The officers exoneration only magnified the pain of losing a family member for the Jackson’s. Grandma Lisa couldn’t take the pain of the daily reminders so she relocated to live in the Northern Bay area for the rest of her life. She could no longer stand to live in the county that murdered her son.

Growing up in SoCal in the 1970s was not unusually hard. The county was a predominantly white Republican county with a median single-family home valued much higher than in most counties in the country. The school system was well funded because, under California law, school funding primarily comes from property taxes. School kids always had access to the books needed to obtain a decent public education. Jamal’s intermediate school had several Apple personal computers in 1982 when the PC revolution was in its infancy. The minorities in the county received a public education equal to their white counterparts since everyone attended the same schools together. The street gang issue was primarily isolated to the Mexicans in the area. The black population was small enough that most knew each other or someone from their family, so conflicts were usually quickly resolved within their own community.

Although Jamal had equal access to a decent public education, he struggled at times in school. It was only after it was discovered he needed glasses that he began to excel. Through an education program implemented to assist troubled students, his mother found Jamal a personal tutor who worked with him three days a week after school in their apartment. Within months he was competing for top honors in his elementary classes. As a quiet kid,Jamal’s asthma always kept him inside while his brother and cousins played outdoors. He spent a lot of time alone drawing to entertain himself with simple cartoon sketches.

Drawing was a cure for the boredom he felt in his isolation. Once his mother saw that he had a passion for drawing and had developed some raw talent, she enrolled him in weekly art classes at a local arts and crafts store. For the next two years, he would spend two or three hours every Saturday morning studying under the directions of an African immigrant named Akar. During the two or three years, he spent in the program, he created several art pieces that were appreciated by friends and family, as well as local art enthusiasts. Some of them even called him a prodigy but Jamal was just having fun. More importantly, Jamal developed a sense of self-pride from his new-found skill to take ideas from his mind and develop them into real, tangible creations.

The family continued to rebound with George out of the picture. With George gone Jamal was thrust into higher responsibilities for both himself and his little brother. From a young age Jamal was taught to make sure his little brother ate first, even if Jamal had to miss out. Although they were only separated by 22 months, Sheila expected, even demanded, Jamal to sacrifice for the younger Hall. As children, Jamal and Jahred were exposed to some of the ills of living in poverty, but they knew of no real blatant struggles or crime until one of their distant cousins, Tim, came to town. Cousin Tim was running from authorities in his native Mississippi, who wanted to arrest him on allegations he had participated in the armed robbery of a local business. Tim was a young, athletically built young man of 19 when he arrived in California. The seriousness of the charges created a big ordeal for Jamal’s mother’s family. There was a series of family meetings and countless phone calls by Jamal’s mother and grandmother as they worked with other family elders to resolve the legal mess Tim was in. Since Tim was understandably paranoid and feared capture, he would live with one family member for a few days then stay a few nights with another. He even spent a few days staying with Jamal and his family as the elders worked out the legal issues.

Tim was Jamal’s first real exposure to what society would label a criminal. But to Jamal, cousin Tim was just the cool teenage cousin, so Jamal struggled to understand why Tim was being hunted like an animal by authorities. In the end, Tim would turn himself over to Mississippi authorities and enlist in the U.S. Army as part of a program at the time that allowed felons to enlist in the military service as an alternative to going to prison.

The political scene at the time had created a demand for a strong military presence that overshadowed the state’s desire to imprison. The program was a saving grace for Tim, who went from being a fugitive of law to having a long 15+ year career in the armed services. Today Tim is a married man and homeowner in Memphis.

Around 1977 or 1978 life brought the Jackson’s small three-person family another unforeseen change named John Nile Erics. From the time George had moved on until late 1977 or 1978, their home was mostly just three. From time to time, Jamal’s Aunt Angel and cousin Cordell would live with them for several months whenever things had gotten difficult for them. Jamal’s father and Cordell’s father, Jesse Brown, were best friends who dated best friends in Angel Walker and Shelia Carter, Jamal’s mom. Angel and Frankie had a son they named Cordell one year after Jamal’s birth and a year before Jahred’s birth, so for all practical purposes, Cordell was considered the middle brother of their extended family.

They attended the same elementary schools, wore each other’s clothing, played together, got punished together and lived in the same house for more than a year before Shelia met John Erics, a 24-year-old Mississippian living in SoCal. He moved to California escaping allegations that he had participated in an armed robbery in Mississippi several years previously. While in SoCal, he lived with his aunt who lived a few city blocks from George’s grandparents. John was a simple man. Young and healthy, but possessing no real employable skills. He had made his living in odd jobs as a handyman or laborer. But in him, Jamal’s mother would see a family man who would be a willing companion for her as she raised her kids, so in 1978 after a few months of dating his mom agreed to John’s marriage proposal. They were married in the fall of 1978.

CHAPTER 2

A FIGHTER ALWAYS FINDS

A WAY TO WIN A FIGHT

As often happens, the lives of complete strangers, people with no apparent connection, cross with significant impact. Such was the case with Big Al Taggutte and Jamal Isaiah Jackson.

As he cruised down Interstate 5, Big Al could not help but smile. Considering everything, life was good for the old amateur boxer. While he never was big enough, strong enough or, honestly, good enough to make it as a pro, he had finally gotten over the disappointment of not becoming the champion welterweight boxer he once envisioned as a kid. The life he had managed to put together for himself had made him one of the most powerful men in California, his new adopted home. It had also made him very wealthy.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1953, Alford Big Al Taggutte, was the oldest of his parents five children. His mother was a big Irish red-haired woman who stayed home to care for the kids. His father was a big, bald Irish prison guard in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. Both were known in the predominantly Irish Catholic neighborhood as no nonsense, hard working family people. The family lived in the working-class neighborhood of South Boston.

At 18 years, Al Taggutte had shown some promise as an up and coming boxer. He won the junior nationals gold medal as a 17-year-old welterweight. By 18 he had turned professional only two months after graduating from Central High. The true boxing men of Boston told him he needed more training at the junior level, but Al ignored them all and turned professional to help his mother make ends meet. Money had suddenly become an issue for the Taggutte family after Al’s father Larry lost 40 percent of his pay after being assaulted by an inmate while on duty at the prison. Al developed a reputation as being the short, undersized fighter with the heart of a lion. He picked up a 48 and 8 semi-pro and amateur record before suffering a career ending knockout loss to Marvin Haggler. The fight was promoted by famed Boston promoter Rip Valenti resulted in Big Al’s biggest payday, earning him $1,500 for the night, but it proved to be his last fight. Ever.

After a few months of laying around sobbing about his new reality, Al landed a job as a security guard at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute for Men. It was the spring of 1972, and the job was not one for softies. Some of the inmates Big Al was expected to supervise were some of the hardest and meanest men in the entire state of Massachusetts. Paul Gordon, the infamous freeway killer, was an inmate housed in the building Big Al secured ten hours a day for five days a week. Of the 200 men housed in the building, 134 were serving life sentences for murder, attempted murder, kidnapping or worse. Big Al knew the job was going to be tough when he first applied, so he wasn’t expecting to be watching a bunch of choirboys. He respected the inmates, but he knew the situation could quickly escalate to vicious violence, so he stayed alert at all times while on duty. He had learned from the incident his father had suffered.

By the winter of 1975, Alford Taggutte had made his way to California. While working as a guard at M.C.I.M., Big Al had befriended Anthony Tony Jones. Tony Jones had moved to California in 1974 and got a job working as a prison guard at San Quentin State Prison. Through some friends working at the prison, Tony could get Big Al a job. Six months later Big Al packed his young wife, their two-month-old son Taylor with all their belongings and moved to northern California to begin his career in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Gone were the cold winters of Massachusetts in exchange for the sunny coasts of California.

The move to California paid off because it didn’t take long for Big Al to move up the rank and file. In only a few years Al Taggutte had began to make his moves. When the 1980 presidential elections rolled around, Al Taggutte was a delegate representative for the newly renamed California Corrections Peace Officers Association, the CCPOA. Al would work a full 10-hour shift at the prison then make the time to shake hands and buy drinks for the local politicians and legislators. It didn’t take long before Big Al had a reputation for being a big spender at the bar and an up and comer in the Sacramento political scene. Since Sacramento is the capital of California, Al Taggutte had planted his roots in the right town for the young man who sought power, prestige, and money.

Little did anyone know he would play such a major role in Jamal’s life.

CHAPTER 3

COCAINE BLESSINGS 1980S

The relationship between Jamal’s mom and John would lead to some life changing decisions that would forever alter all their lives and the lives of generations to come. By the spring of 1983, their relationship turned volatile just as they finally started to produce something of value. It was the early 1980s, and Jahred and Jamal had more material things than the average kids, and certainly more than the average black kids. Both kids had bikes, Atari, the latest in the new phenomena of video games, and designer sweat suits.

Shelia had two cars, and John owned another. For the first time, their home was furnished with new quality furnishings. For three years straight, Jamal won best dressed in his class. They played Pop Warner football and went to summer camp for two straight years. Life was cool.

As a child, Jamal and Jahred were taught to do as children do and stay out of grown folks’ business. They knew they were living better than any other period in their short lives but it wasn’t until one warm day in June that Jamal got a glance into the reality behind their new financial well doings: cocaine.

Jamal wandered in on six large bundles of a white powdery, flour-like substance on the kitchen table. He saw his mom, John, and two of John’s companions, his uncle, and another brother he would forever refer to as Uncle Chick, weighing and bagging this powder into several other plastic bags. Before he was rushed out the door, Jamal got a glimpse of the dope game, allowing him to put together the source of the family’s affluence. That white powder was pure magic. They were still just kids and lived by his mother’s creed, a child stays in a child place, but life was clearly changing. Naturally, Jamal was curious how this little powder created such a good life for his family, but he knew family finances were an adult issue, so he never dared to question things. The smallest sign of disobedience would get the guilty kid beat so bad, he’d have U shaped marks on his body for days after the beating from the coiled power cord used to beat him.

That same summer in 1983, Jamal would see several shipments of cocaine come through their home on its way to be distributed somewhere in southern California. As he watched, he quickly learned at the head of this small distribution unit was John’s uncle, Aston Harris. At the first meeting, Jamal remembered everyone anxiously awaiting the arrival of John’s uncle at their apartment. The kids hung around the front yard hoping to be the first to see this celebrity hustler everyone awaited. Jahred was first to spot the caramel colored Excalibur automobile