DELVIN LANE

Delvin Lane – from streets to success…

When you walk into Delvin Lanes office you see all the normal signs of success you see for all successful people. There are awards hanging on the wall, family pictures on the desk, nice furniture, and computers. Delvin has a sign from the civil rights era hanging prominently on the front of his desk that says “I Am a Man”. He is an African American man who is proud of his heritage.

As you sit down and talk to Delvin you quickly see why he has risen to the number two position at Streets Ministries. Streets is a very successful ministry that serves the third poorest zip code in the United States. He is bright, passionate and handsome. He has one of those million dollar, contagious smiles! But as you survey the landscape of his office one thing seems out of place. There is one clue that says maybe this story isn’t as typical as it seems. There’s a t-shirt purposefully draped over a chair in the corner that has a picture of a man in the center. The copy around the picture reads … “In Memory of Gauge”.  “So Delvin, what’s up with the t-shirt?” I ask. “You really want to know?” Sure! The reason he asked was that there was no short answer and to tell Gauge’s story I really needed to know his.

Delvins’ story is one all too familiar in the Foote and Cleaborn homes community of inner city Memphis. Delvin and his older brother were raised in a single parent home and barely knew their fathers. I say fathers because their mom had them with two different men. Delvin only saw his dad 5 times in his life, despite the fact that his dad lived in the same neighborhood. His dad was drunk 4 of the 5 times they saw each other but it was the sober experience that stood out the most. “When I was 5 years old my Dad came and got me… took me to get some clothes and meet his mom.”  Even as he recalled the 26 year old experience he still vividly remembers crying the whole time ‘til his dad returned him home.

So there was no dad, little money and a tough neighborhood. It was not the kind of environment that breeds a lot of success. Despite all of this, Delvin did have some blessings that got him through. His mom, with only an 8th grade education, loved her children and raised them the best she could. She worked three jobs and was a strict disciplinarian. She insisted that her children not make the same mistakes she did and demanded they bring home good grades. Delvin simply wasn’t allowed to bring home a C. If he brought home a C that meant a whippin’ from mom. It was really this simple, bring home A’s and B’s or face mom. Delvin decided the latter was the best option! He also had a great relationship with his older brother. They were best friends, loved each other and always seemed to watch each others back. When Delvin was three “stepdad” moved in the house.  They never wanted him to be and he never tried to be their dad, but he did bring some financial stability and allowed mom to cut back to just one job. She could now spend more time raising the kids. Another “benefit” of having “stepdad” around was that Delvin got to see up close and personal how to run a business. You see “stepdad” was a loan shark. Folks would come by the house… borrow $50 dollars and come back next week with $75. “The one thing we could never figure out is why they always repaid him”, Delvin remembered, “Hardly anybody ever ran off and it wasn’t because he would have them hurt or anything like that they just always paid him back”. “Stepdad” wasn’t a tough guy he was a small soft spoken type that simply would “cut you off” if you didn’t pay up. Delvin also was a tremendous athlete and displayed unusual leadership skills at an early age. So while things were far from perfect there was the loving and strict mom, a brother that had his back, a male figure that brought at least some stability, a sharp mind, athletic talent and a natural gift to lead. Delvin would use the things he had to embark on a wild ride of sex, money and drugs. His teenage and early twenty years contained exhilarating highs and unspeakable lows. There were several watershed moments and a miraculous conversion.  He lived through shoot outs, a meteoric rise to the top of the Memphis gang scene and the terrifying proposition of quitting the Gangster Disciples. After all as the GD’s said… “You don’t get out you die out”!

At age 11, Delvin was going to school, playing sports and working an odd job here and there. He took notice that the kids in the neighborhood that sold drugs always seemed to have more “stuff” than he did. So at age 11 he embarked on a career of selling drugs. His brains and business savvy paid dividends right away. From talking to friends Delvin figured out how to make fake crack cocaine. “I would put cooking flour and white candle wax in a skillet and melt it down, but what made my fake drugs superior to everybody else’s was that I put Oral Gel in mine. The Oral Gel numbed your tongue when the addicts touched it with their tongue it gave them the same feeling of real crack so they bought it”. Of course he had to go places where he wasn’t known well to sell this because no telling what the addicts might do if they could get there hands on him after they discovered it was fake. He could make $200 quick selling the fake cocaine. It sure beats throwing papers and selling lemonade! By age 13 he had moved on from the fake stuff to the real stuff and owned several guns to protect himself. He needed the guns because now the money had become big and the stakes high. At age 14 he fathered his first child… a boy… little Delvin or little “D”. Big “D” had remembered a promise he made to himself as a boy. “I told myself that if I ever had kids I would never do to them what my dad did to me and my brother, I would be there for my kids.” So at age 14 you have a boy that has the responsibilities of a man. A successful drug selling business, a son, guns, and oh yeah still found time to be an A student and star athlete! And he had the promise, the promise to be there for his kids. He couldn’t back out now if he wanted to, after all how could he keep the promise with out the drug money so instead of backing down he pressed forward and the stakes continued to get higher.

At age 16 one of those watershed moments arrived. Delvin had become an expert at hiding his double life from mom. She never saw the money and when Delvin did allow her to see a few of the trappings of his success he simply explained to mom that his teachers had paid for the field trip or the new pair of shoes. This was easy to believe because Delvin was so loved at school that it wouldn’t surprise anybody that the teachers might step in to help him out. They knew the family was poor. But despite his “acting” at home he couldn’t help but to start thinking that he no longer had to let mom discipline him. After all he had money, weapons, a son… he was a man now. His brother had two years earlier made that decision, got an apartment and was doing “fine”.  Delvin also liked the women and mom wasn’t having any of that in her house. So one day he actually got the nerve up to tell mom that he wasn’t going to wash the dishes. When “stepdad” got home he uncharacteristically confronted Delvin about this. Delvin wasn’t about to take anything off him so he told “stepdad” to step outside. Have I mentioned that Delvin was an accomplished boxer? So the dukes went up and a fight was about to ensue when mom cracked a broom handle over the top of Delvin’s head. That was it! The ultimate betrayal by mom. She had chosen “stepdad” over him. He left. That moment. He just took off. But Delvin’s love of school and love of sports did him in. Mom knew right where to find him. She called the police, they got him out of class and took him to jail. A few days later the police informed mom that it would be $40 a day for Delvin to remain in jail so mom went and brought him home. They tried to work things out but things had changed. Delvin didn’t trust mom anymore. She had chosen “stepdad” over him and she had called the cops on him… something she had promised not to do. Worst of all she still wouldn’t allow girls in the house so at age 17 he took off again. But this time the law deemed him an adult and mom couldn’t do anything about it. He moved in with his brother… he was free at last.

As Delvin was getting ready for his senior year of high school the college scholarship offers started to roll in. After all he had excellent grades and was the star quarterback on the football team at Booker T Washington High School. Delvin took out a map and decided on Wyoming. He wanted as far away from Memphis as he could. Even though the drug money was good he knew it couldn’t last forever. His going to Wyoming would give him the clean break he wanted, but then another watershed moment. It was just before his senior year was to start he went to a local swimming pool. Unbeknownst to him his brother had just been in an altercation with the lifeguards at the pool and went home to get his machine gun. Delvin comes walking up and the lifeguards start asking him about his brother saying they were going to hurt him. “No y’all ain’t going to do nothing to my brother”, Delvin said. The lifeguards replied, “well maybe we will just hurt you instead.” Delvin challenged them and to make a long story short they wrestled him down, took his gun, pistol whipped him, called the police and blamed the whole thing on Delvin. Since Delvin had been in trouble for carrying a gun before he was sentenced to 6 months in jail. So long senior year, so long football, so long Wyoming.

After jail Delvin returned to Booker T Washington and graduated with honors. He figured out how to get financial aid for college and went to college at UT Martin. He did well grade wise there but got another girl pregnant, his girlfriend Loretta. Now Delvin had two kids. He remembered the promise so he moved back to Memphis and enrolled at Memphis State. Until now Delvin had never succumbed to the constant overtures of the Gangster Disciples, they wanted him because he was just the type they looked for. He was smart, a leader, organized, disciplined and knew how to run a business. Delvin never saw the need to join. He seemed to be doing just fine selling drugs and making money without them. The GD’s are very persistent especially for a “prize” recruit like Delvin. But this time a new guy was doing the recruiting. A man named Gauge. Remember him? Gauge was much like Delvin and was very persuasive and did not give up easily. Gauge seemed to pop up all the time in Delvin’s life, always selling and always persuading. Gauge told Delvin the gang would give him structure, back up, room to advance and the opportunity to make really big money. So, with the sharp and talented Gauge doing the recruiting and the fact his brother and friends were already GD’s on June 6th 1966 Delvin became a Gangster Disciple. The next three years where a whirlwind of money, death, depression and redemption.

Before you knew it Delvin was pulling in $3,000 - $5,000 a week. Because of his studious nature he learned the GD literature quicker than most and in short order had 125 men that reported directly to him. Power, money, cars and clothes, Delvin had it all. He and the GD’s controlled the neighborhood. He dropped out of school. He had three apartments… one for Loretta, Danesha (his daughter) and himself. One for his drug deals to go down and a place for him to go in case Loretta ever got fed up and said leave. He was so important to the gang that he had a 24/7 security detail around him which included a 6’5” 400 lb. man that carried a semi automatic weapon with him. Life was moving fast… too fast. Delvin was with his brother when as Delvin says “something really bad happened”. His brother was convicted of murder and is in prison for 51 years. As easy as Delvin tells most of this story he openly is uncomfortable talking about what happened with his brother. I didn’t push it. He had a 15 year old boy die in his arms. He had multiple friends sent to prison for life. As all this happened around him, Delvin always escaped. As others died… he lived. His fellow gang members began to notice that “D” seemed to be bulletproof. “D” started to wonder why he was so “lucky”. The next watershed moment is just around the corner.

On May 13th 1999 Delvin went to bed thinking life was good. He had money, power and possessions. Loretta was with him. He was caring for his kids. Little “D” was still living with his mom at this point but big “D” was making sure he had all he needed. On May 14th 1999, he woke up in a severe state of depression. Delvin had never felt this way before. He never really felt fear until now and  all of the sudden it was overwhelming him. His life was flashing before his eyes. Thoughts that rarely crept in before were now haunting him. “Why haven’t I been shot?” “How come I’m not in jail?” “My time is coming?” Delvin and Loretta got up and went to see a local Pastor Ronnie Tullis. Pastor Ronnie asked the confused gang member a question he had heard many times before… “if you died would you go to heaven or hell?” It was a familiar question that Delvin had been trained to answer before. He said “Heaven.” “Why” asked Pastor Ronnie. Delvin gave another pat answer “because Christ is my Lord and Savior.” But then came a question he had no answer for. Tullis looked him in the eye and said “you say you’re a Christian but where’s your fruit?” “FRUIT” said Delvin. “What you mean fruit… I’m a man not a tree!” Pastor Ronnie explained that if those words were true his life would be bearing the fruit to prove it. Delvin had to admit there was no fruit on his tree only sin… and lots of it. He and Loretta hit their knees and accepted Christ into their heart at that moment. Delvin proposed to Loretta and moved out. As 2nd Corinthians 5:17 says… “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” Delvin was indeed a new man. One problem though there was still one watershed moment to go and this would be the most terrifying one of all!

The new Delvin knew that he could no longer be in the gang so he simply started to avoid them. The meetings he ran were cancelled. The security detail so ever present before he “shook”. As Delvin says the “Devil was still lying to me though, telling me I needed the drug money to pay for my wedding and stuff”. He continued to sell drugs but now as a free agent, and with a new message. He began witnessing to just about everybody, including the addicts he was selling to! A lot of confused looks were coming his way! On July 3rd 1999, he was selling drugs to an addict named Deborah and witnessing away when Deborah said something that stopped him in his tracks… “baby this job isn’t for you” Delvin remembered a verse he had learned in Matthew 6:33… “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things would be given to you as well”. Since that day he has never sold, touched or even seen drugs. The next day he married Loretta. Delvin took on two part time jobs to make ends meet. But one black cloud was always following him, the gang. He still hadn’t dealt with that. He was well aware of another member that tried to leave, they found him in the back of a U-Haul truck with his legs, arms and head cut off! Then one day in August the most terrifying moment of a life of terrifying moments happened. His former security detail cornered him. His former chief of security said “Man, where you been?” “Around” Delvin said. “We’ve been watching you and we want to tell you something...” Delvin at this point had nothing left but his trust in God. He remembered praying “OK God I’m putting my trust in you” His trust in God was so strong that he even accepted that this may be how and when he dies. The mammoth, intimidating chief of security looked deep into his eyes and said “Go on and do what you are doing, but do us a favor.” This froze Delvin… he thought the “favor” would be to kill someone to get out. He knew he couldn’t do that if someone had to die it would have to be him. But the security chief with tears in his eyes and in a soft voice said, “Don’t forget us, man. Come back and tell us how to get right with God, too.” Delvin has spent the rest of his life teaching others how to get right with God.

“So Delvin” I said. “Yeah” he shot back. “Whatever happened to Gauge?” “We remained friends, one night he came to my house and we talked.” “Oh yeah about what?” I asked. “God, Gauge wanted what I had, he accepted Christ into his heart that night.” Delvin continued “We went and got him a ticket to leave town the next day.” “But God had a different plan for Gauge, the next morning he got caught up in some gang crossfire and was shot dead before he could leave.” We both stared at the t-shirt for a moment. We then quietly walked out of Delvin’s “normal” office of a “typical” successful man.