Minister helps homies make peace

By Carla Hinton

Published: June 23, 2007

Grabbing his telephone, the Rev. Theodis Manning sat up in bed and looked at the clock on a nearby nightstand.

The time flashed vivid red in the darkness: 1 a.m.

Instantly alert, the pastor answered the ringing phone.

"You said you wanted to meet. Well, we meeting now,” a voice challenged the Midwest City preacher.

"Now?” Manning asked.

"Now.” The voice insisted.

Manning, 48, climbed out of bed, got dressed and drove to a northeast Oklahoma City neighborhood where gang members awaited his arrival.

The preacher peered out at the faces of the young men and women crowded around him. A youthful air still clung to some of them, but most seemed older than their years, their faces hardened by a lifestyle centered on loyalty in the streets — loyalty that too often leads to crime, prison, death.

"I had to go and meet with them,” Manning said. "They wanted to know if this is for real ... if I'm for real.

"I told them ‘This is real.'”

Manning, pastor of Divine Wisdom Worship Center, 8320 NE 10, is serious about what some might say is an impossible task. He hopes to broker a truce among gangs in Oklahoma County, starting with those who live and often die in northeast Oklahoma City.

Manning will team with Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater on Sunday to hold a "Stop The Violence Community Rally.” The two men, along with other community partners, hope to gain support for their efforts to end gang violence.

"We're all tired of the killing. We're tired of the shooting — the mad cycle, the vicious cycle,” Manning said.

He said help and hope is available to those who wish to put gang-banging behind them and start new lives. It might not be easy, but it is possible, Manning said.

He has gathered a group of ex-gang members who are working with him to persuade young people to avoid the gang life or get out of it if they are already entrenched. The ministry, called Teaching and Saving Kids, or T.A.S.K., seeks to connect young "homies” with people who can relate to them best: "old homies” such as Ty Rogers and Johnny Hunt.

"We're going to use some of that influence,” Manning said. "A young kid may not listen to his mom and dad, but if one of his big homies tells him to do something then he'll probably do it.”

Manning said he did not consider creating an outreach ministry for ex-gang members until recent years. He's working to help them find jobs after they get out of prison, continue their education and provide stability for themselves and their families. Manning said his ministry hopes to start a basketball league, boxing league and offer job training to provide safe and purposeful alternatives to combat the lure of the streets.

Manning, an Arkansas native, said he experienced the gang lifestyle for a brief time in his teens during a summer visit to Los Angeles, and later to support a drug habit he developed after college. He said he ultimately rejected the gang lifestyle and built a successful mortgage company due to the Lord's leading.

In 2005, a young gang member attended church one Sunday. The preacher was confronted with the harsh realities of the street gangs.

"He got up and said, ‘I'm sick and tired of this. I want to get out but I need help.' He took his bandanna, a blue one, and laid it down on the altar,” Manning said.

Manning said the moment changed him.

"I realized I had tried so hard to get away from the streets that I had become disconnected. It was kind of an awakening.”

Manning said in the intervening years, he has met and gathered around him former gang members who share his passion to see gang violence end.

Rogers, 32, said his efforts with the church's T.A.S.K. ministry are fueled by that desire.

"There are too many reasons to want change, to help people,” he said.

"I tell them, ‘I see it in you but let me tell you where this road leads. You can still be down for the 'hood. You've got a clean record. Why don't you be a councilman. Why don't you be a doctor or a lawyer?'

"We can't help ourselves if all of us are locked up. We can't help moms who are out there having to do what they have to do if all of us are locked up.”

The men said too many young people are drawn to the gangs for money and a desire to present a tough image to the world.

"They're trying to fit in,” Rogers said.

"I know there are children who are very wealthy and they choose to be in it,” said Antt B. Brown, another T.A.S.K. member.

While some choose the lifestyle, there are others who are born into the gang, meaning close family members are gang members.

Marques Cooper, 21, said he joined a gang when he was 12, but found solace in music when he was 17. Rapping spurred him to reject the gang lifestyle, and he believes other young people can be persuaded to do the same. That's why he supports Manning's efforts.

"It's to show these kids the energy you put into gang-banging, you need to put it in something else,” Cooper said.

Hunt, now a welder and homeowner, said he too would like to see young gang members turn in their weapons and colors for good.

"I love my little homies and homegirls. I look at them and say, ‘That used to be me.'”