In his journey from Bloods gang member to best-selling author, Dashaun Jiwe Morris has proven that it is possible to "sell someone a 10-foot dream with a five-foot ladder."
Saturday afternoon, the Penn Bookstore and the Arts and Spirituality Center's HeartSpeak program hosted Morris, former gang member and author of War of the Bloods in my Veins: A Street Soldier's March to Redemption.
War of the Bloods in my Veins is Morris's memoir about his involvement in the infamous Bloods street gang. One of the main goals of the book is to show children from impoverished neighborhoods that they can do more with their lives than sell drugs and their bodies.
Morris began his talk by describing his move to Phoenix from New Jersey when he was just nine years old. This foreign environment, along with the attitude that "respect came from violence," influenced Morris's involvement in the Bloods gang activity. As he said, "Either you were taking something or something was being taken from you . so I learned to take."
When Morris returned to the East Coast at age 11, he took the gang mentality back with him. He eventually became immersed in the drug dealing, robbery and continual violence of the East Coast Bloods gang.
Only after a prison stint and the birth of his first daughter was Morris able to break from the cycle. It was during his time in prison for first-degree attempted murder that he began his memoir.
Morris said he wrote the book primarily for women and children.
"Many of the mothers, grandmother and aunts who are raising the youngsters don't know what is happening in their neighborhoods," Morris said.
It is his goal to enlighten these women so they can better prepare their children to make good choices.
In addition to Morris's presentation, Yosef Kromah, an 18-year-old high-school senior from Southwest Philadelphia, gave a poetry reading as part of the Arts and Spirituality Center's Heart Speak program.
As a teenager living in a neighborhood much like Morris', he "related to a lot of things Jiwe was saying," he said.
Fatima James, program director of the Arts and Spirituality Center, explained that HeartSpeak is a program that "connects area kids directly with artists and poets."
Since its publication in April 2008, War of the Bloods in my Veins has been nominated for the 2009 NAACP Image Awards in the category of Outstanding Literary Work by a debut Author and has won numerous awards. The story is currently being adapted into a movie.
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