The Whole World Stopped

Audrey Wright

In 2011 and 2012, while more than 900 people were being murdered on the streets of Chicago, creative-writing students from DePaul University fanned out all over the city to interview people whose lives have been changed by the bloodshed. The result is How Long Will I Cry?: Voices of Youth Violence, an extraordinary and eye-opening work of oral history.

Told by real people in their own words, the book contains the extraordinary stories of 34 Chicagoans. This is one of them.

Audrey Wright is an unlikely—if forceful—advocate for violent ex-offenders. In 1998, she lost her 24-year-old son, Gordie, in a drive-by shooting. But instead of wallowing in hatred for young people who turn to violence, she decided to help them find better futures.

The result is Gordie’s Foundation, a vocational-training program for ex-cons located in West Englewood, a South Side neighborhood where the rate of youth homicide is nearly five times higher than it is citywide.

As this interview begins, Wright indicates that she is not feeling well and almost canceled our meeting. She seems impatient to get through the conversation, and keeps her coat and hat on as she recounts the traumatic story of her son’s death and the way she chose to deal with that loss.

You just don’t give up on communities. You don’t just give up on young kids. You know? I don’t know what kind of heart people have when their kids get killed and they just go home and sit down. They don’t do nothing. They got to get up and say, “Let’s fight. Let’s stop some of this.”

I have a 12,000-square-foot building that I train people in. I have about nine things in my building that I teach. I have carpentry, with weatherization. I have janitorial. I have the barber school. I have industrial sewing. I have embroidery and screen-printing, so ex-felons can get a job or open their own business. I have a city inspector, who teaches heating for me on Saturdays. Did you know that a heating and air guy that’s been taught by a city inspector can go out and start his own business in his own neighborhood? You see what I’m saying? He don’t have to worry about looking for work at McDonald’s and whether he got a record.

Those are things that I do to help the community. We have a counselor. We can recommend some place to go if you are homeless. I have a young lady that always tries to put aside 13 beds for me. These are things that are important to people on the street.

It was 1998 when my son got killed. When he walked out the door that night, he said, “Mama, I’m going to get me some cigarettes.” And I begged him, “Please don’t walk around that corner. You know how these people be.”

He went out of my house at 15 minutes to 12. At 12:01, my son was shot. At 12:49, my son was dead. It was like the whole world stopped. And you know what he said to me before he walked out the door? He said, “Mama, you got to turn me loose because if God get ready for me, there ain’t nothing you can do.”

I remember that, just like he said it yesterday: “If God get ready for me, nothing nobody can do. It’s my time to go.” And that’s what keeping me going. God was ready for him. And he had to go; I couldn’t stop it.

No mother wants to lose a son by a stray bullet, by any kind of bullet. Twenty-four years old—your life is just beginning. That was the hardest thing for me to accept—his life was gone at 24. But when you sit back to look at it, he lived a life that a lot of young men didn’t live. We went to Denver, Colorado, and he did a movie with John Ritter. He did commercials with Gus, what’s his name, little white boy, Gus, what is his name? Anyway, he did commercials with him. He did commercials for macaroni and cheese. He was in a movie with Cicely Tyson.* He did a lot of things in his life that a lot of children didn’t get a chance to do. And I said to myself, God blessed him. God blessed him to do some of the things an average black kid couldn’t do.

It is just so sad to lose a child. You look to your son or your daughter to bury you, not for you to bury your child. When you bury your child, a part of your whole life is gone. You cry; you’re gonna cry. It’s not going to ever go away. So you have to wipe the tears and keep going to accomplish something. That’s the way I think.

The day my son got killed, two mothers lost, not one. I lost and the boy that killed my son, his mother lost. Okay? I don’t have no hate in my heart. I just wanted that person that killed my son to be taken off the street and punished because he didn’t need to be on the street where he would kill somebody else’s child. Now my husband feels differently than I do, okay? But I’m my own person and I have to account to God.

That’s why I put the school here in Englewood after he got killed. I decided to help stop some of the violence, to give young men, ex-felons, ex-drug addicts and handicapped people a trade. Take the guns out of their hands and put a trade into their hands.

I reach out to help regardless of what kind of crime you did. I have a young man who was in the penitentiary for 25 years. And he’s working on a newspaper. I put my head out on the block for him. You know why? Because he was sincere.

The person that called me said, “Miss Wright, do you recommend him?”

I said, “Yes, I do recommend him. If he don’t do what you say, give me a call.” He’s been there over two years now. Those are things that I’m proud of because I’ve helped somebody. They can come to me and ask for help. I’m their mother, I’m their father, their brother and their sister because I leave my door open for them to come in.

Everyone asks me, aren’t you afraid to be around all them killers and rapists? No. They human just like I am. They did something wrong, okay? They realized they done wrong. They ready to change. How come I can’t give them the chance to change? We have to give another human being a chance to change. And if you don’t give them a chance to change, they back out there killing again.

And I got backup behind me. It’s like a safe haven here. I’ve never been broken into. I’ve never had big problems. They know not to come down here and mess it up. Now who put it out there I don’t know and don’t care, but I appreciate that because they say that Miss Audrey is the only thing we got to help us. Some of those same guys, I can call them up right now, and they come to the rescue. You know why? Because I changed their life.

A lot of these young men, they keep me on my knees, praying all the time. Right now, when they come through my building, they say, “Miss Wright, I might not live to 25.” That’s sad. We as parents, we don’t fight hard enough to keep our children here. Do you think if you had a son he would come and tell you that the gangs want him? Let me say this. Open up your eyes and listen to what I’m saying. Open up your ears. The gangbangers on the street tell a boy, “You gonna do what we say or we’re gonna do something to you and your whole family.” That young man be scared that something gonna happen to him and his whole family. It has happened. We’re losing our babies now. The gangs don’t care who they kill. They shooting up in the house, shooting up in the yard, shooting everywhere, they don’t care.

I’ve seen so much, where they got empty houses behind the buildings. Tricks go down there, and the summertime I used to sit in my lot and I’d call the police because the little kids coming though there, walking through the alley going to school. They seeing this, they’ve been exposed to these things when they 5 and 6 and 7 years old. Then the gangs drive by, boom, boom, boom. This is what needs to be stopped. And we got to come together. If you got a strong group, you can stop them. If we start weaving ourselves together like a basket, you can’t get through it. You can stop them. You can stop them. We can help our own communities.

Where I live—the Beverly neighborhood—they say I’m crazy.* But let me say this to you: Not only my son, it could have been your son, anybody’s son. I grieve every day. Some days I cry, some days I don’t. But I grieve every day. I was married 10 years before I got pregnant with my son. Then boom, he gone. I don’t hate. I can’t hate. I can’t hate the young man that killed my son because that person has to give an account to God for all his wrongdoings. I don’t feel that I have to give up on nobody. I don’t ever give up. I don’t ever give up.