From Survival to The Messenger

I was born in the South, the last of five children — three brothers and a sister. My father was a high school dropout. My mother picked cotton as a child.

Formal education was not the priority in my family. Survival was.

I grew up in a world where instability was the norm. I didn’t know the foundation of a traditional two-parent home. Instead, I knew neglect, abandonment, and the feeling of not being wanted. By the time I turned 17, I had moved seven different times. Every move reminded me that stability wasn’t for people like me.

In 4th grade, I was bussed into a talented and gifted program. That bus ride changed my life. For the first time, I saw possibility — a world outside the one society and circumstance had tried to box me into.

But at home, reality hit harder. At 14, I told my mother I wanted to go to college. She looked at me and said:
“You keep talking about going to college… we ain’t got no money for that. Real men work with their hands. Anybody can read a book.”

Those words cut deep. They weren’t just a statement — they were a wound. And like all wounds, if left unhealed, they shape how you see yourself and how you move through the world.

That’s why healing matters.
Because unhealed pain doesn’t disappear. It shows up in classrooms, in friendships, in workplaces, in families. It becomes generational. It convinces people to play small, to abandon dreams, to mistake survival for destiny.

Sports and education became my lifeline. I poured myself into discipline, intentionality, and resilience. I knew if I wanted out, it was all on me. I earned a scholarship. When I stepped onto the campus of Wofford College, it wasn’t just about earning a degree — it was the first stable home I had ever known.

From there, I kept pushing. A Master’s degree. Then a PhD in Criminology. I became a critical criminologist — not just to study injustice, but to expose it, challenge it, and dismantle it.

But the real transformation didn’t happen in the classroom. It happened in the mirror.

Through self-reflection, I faced my wounds. Through self-awareness, I understood how those wounds shaped me. Through self-consciousness, I gained the power to live differently.

That process is not just what saved me. It is now my method — the way I help others break cycles that were meant to break them.

I am The Messenger. And my life is proof: survival is not the end of the story. Healing is where justice begins.