The Day That Changed Everything: Billy Moore on Redemption and Purpose

At 16 years old, Billy Moore made a decision that altered countless lives, including his own. What followed was 20 years in prison, the weight of accountability, and a long journey toward understanding identity, forgiveness, and purpose.

In this episode, Billy shares the “story before the story”, the loss of his father, the search for self and belonging, the influence of his environment, and the split-second confrontation that ended in tragedy. He speaks candidly about incarceration, the turning point sparked by his grandmother’s words, and the commitment he made to ensure his life would not be defined solely by his worst mistake.

Now a site manager with Chicago CRED (Creating Real Economic Destiny), Billy works on the front lines of violence intervention, mentoring young men navigating the same pressures, trauma, and survival mindset that once shaped him. He discusses his approach to instilling hope in communities where systemic inequities, economic disinvestment, and fractured trust are predominant forces in the lives of the young men he serves. 

This conversation is about accountability without erasure, forgiveness without denial, hope without overpromising, and the belief that redemption is not a single moment, but a daily decision to grow, to serve, and to get one step closer to purpose.

Learn More: Chicago CRED

Transcript

Welcome to the Redefine What's Possible podcast. I am your host, Shanon Tysland, and here we explore the stories of transformation—physical, mental, and spiritual—and how people rise above their circumstances to create momentum in their lives and communities. Today I'm honored. Our guest is Billy Moore. He's the author of Until the Lion Speaks, a powerful true story of tragedy, redemption, and purpose.

An Illinois native raised on Chicago's South Side, has spent 20 years in prison for a decision that altered countless lives. Since his release, he's devoted himself to mentoring at-risk youth through Chicago Cred, helping young men caught in the cycle of violence find hope, healing, and belonging. Billy, it's an honor to have you on this podcast. Thank you for having me. Okay, Billy, let's dive in. Your life...

seems to be centered around a tragic day, the one that changed so many lives. And I want to start with the story before the story, because no one's life begins with a headline. Every choice we make has roots in family and community and the pain and love that shape who we become. And Billy, your book, Until the Lion Speaks, gives us a chance to understand that deeper story, to hear the lion's voice for the first time

And there's a powerful African proverb that it begins with that says, until the lion tells their side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. Can you share what that means to you and what made you want to tell your side of the story? Again, Shanon, thanks for having me on your podcast. I think the African proverb

It's not just something that speaks to my story, but it's something that speaks to a lot of people who live in disadvantaged communities, that you hear things about these communities from a sensational, live standpoint, things in the media that tries to define circumstances. I heard another proverb say, you can't judge my harvest without knowing my seed. You can't really understand how people show up if you don't really understand where they come from. And basically, when I heard that African proverb,

It really resonated with me and my personal story because I grew up on the South side of Chicago in a middle-class family. I had dreams and aspirations. I was an athlete. I played baseball, loved the sport. It was passed down to me from my father, who, older brother who actually played in the Negro leagues. He was playing with the Kansas City Monarchs after Jackie Robinson got called up and integrated Major League Baseball. So that's a family history and a legacy that on my father's side, we all embrace.

and he passed that level of baseball on to me. But my father, as much as he was a part of my life, I can't remember when he and my mother lived in the same household. So I was raised in a single parent household. It was an extended household because I lived with my grandparents, me and my mother. And my father, as much as he supported me, I saw him when I could. Around the time when I was 14, my father had got diagnosed with cancer when he was 33 years old. And he ended up dying

of cancer when I was 15. That was at a real crucial time in my life that kind of defined a lot of young people because I was just entering high school. I was learning how to make decisions on my own. I was just really trying to understand the world for what it was and make decisions based off that. And because I didn't have my father around, that I knew who could have really helped guide my decision making. And my mother, she was busy working trying to support me. I had a lot of time on my hand.

And a lot of time on my hand meant me just being outside on the South side of Chicago, which had a real heavy street influence. And what I mean by that, I'm a be very specific gang influence. I was the only child. I had cousins. I didn't know that I had a little sister until I was 13 years old. But for all intents and purposes, I grew up without anyone to really look up to but the guys in the neighborhood. And that influence is what

pulled me in, And because we were so close knit, that became my safe place, right? My place of protection. Chicago had became very divided. It's always been divided in certain communities, from a racial segregated standpoint to the time that I was growing up in the 80s to a gang divided lines, right? So boundaries kind of define what was safe and what was not safe. And if you were a part of

this group, like I said, that had became my safe place, I felt safe. And just because of the influence of the gang culture, I made some decisions that I really regretted to today. Decisions that involve a 16 year old carrying a gun, right? You have to have a certain level of maturity to understand what the consequences could mean when you carry guns. And I always tell people, for young people who have such an undeveloped mind of maturity and

the process of how you think and rationalize things. To put a gun in your hand is a recipe for destruction. You're going to make some bad decisions. And I always say, when you pick up that gun, you get gun problems. And people tend to deal with situations different when they have a gun, as opposed to dealing with a situation without a gun. And my father, I guarantee you, if he was alive and understood the direction I was going in, I would have made some better decisions. Because I would have had his influence over the influence that

made me think that carrying guns was acceptable. Billy, real quick, with the loss of your father, can you expand on that? Did that impact your sense of identity or who you were that maybe led to different choices? Absolutely. My identity up until the time that I lost my father was basically me looking up to my father, trying to pattern my life or myself after my father. Me personally, from where I come from, I've never

sent a little boy say that he wanted to grow up and be like his mother. If he had a father in his life or a strong or positive male role model, it didn't even have to be a positive role model. Just the presence of an older male is something that younger men or younger boys look up to be or wanted to be. And my father had a very tremendous influence over my life. Like I said, he passed on a lot down to me. So at the time that he died, I lost a lot of

my way. I didn't understand now. I've never lost, I've never lived my life without my father being around for me to be able to call or just spend time and have these conversations around just different things that involve life and decision making. So trying to make decisions without him, I leaned on what was proxemic to me. It was the guys in the neighborhood, right? And unfortunately at that time it was like the blind leading the blind.

Would you say that's where your story really started to diverge? Absolutely. Because I stopped playing baseball, I started gang banging, I started skipping school, I started doing a lot of things that would have been totally unacceptable from my father. He wouldn't have allowed me to do these things. And because of the respect that I have for him, it wouldn't have been a question how I would have fell back in line if he'd had the opportunity to just be right there to help rear me in the right way.

but he wasn't there and I was left on my own to make decisions, right? Which led me to make one of the worst decisions of my life. I say worst mistakes of my life. And I do define what sent me to prison as a mistake because as a man right now who works with young men who are trying to make the right decisions, I realized to the point that me losing my father, me not understanding who I was as an individual, my self identity.

Growing up with all these insecurities and not knowing how to define who I am without allowing the perception of other people to be what kind of defines me, right? When I'm able to look back on my life and see where I went wrong at, that's something that I can help teach younger people who's trying to find themselves and dealing with those same insecurities and trying to understand who they self-image are and how do they define themselves outside of perception of how other people will see them.

within my community, within a certain culture that I come from. But disrespect is what tends to play a bigger part in how people respond. You can't allow nobody to punk you. You can't allow nobody to disrespect you because the perception of everybody that's around, their witnesses will kind of be what they would define you as from that point on. How do you handle that? And because you are a young man trying to understand who you are, the way you see yourself is heavily

depending on how other people see you. Billy, think it's what you're saying really resonates. And I think it's important to understand that the ecosystem that you're in can help shape the behavior, the emotional, social, systemic realities that form people long before a moment of tragedy ever happens. Can you take us back to that day and what really defined your life moving forward? Once again, like I said,

The worst mistake of my life took place November 20th of 1984. I was 16 years old. I cut school because a relative of mine had came home and told me that a young man had took $10 from her while she was at the school store. And that when she realized what was going on, she asked for her money back. And he told her, if you want to come get it and put the money down the front of his pants. Of course, that was also a form of disrespect that couldn't be tolerated, right? So me,

And a couple of friends of mine went up to the school the next day to go get her money. The issue actually had got resolved that morning. And I was just up there just hanging out, basically doing nothing, just spending idle time. And we know what idle time can sometimes lead to. I get sure from behind. And at the time, I didn't know who it was, but it was such force that it felt like either they were running, playing, or they was very intentional. And

intentional from the standpoint of trying to hurt me. So once I gathered myself and realized what was going on, the individual who pushed me from behind just kept walking. It was him and another young lady. So when I asked, was he going to say, excuse me, he basically turned around and then no uncertain terms told me, no, he wasn't going to say, excuse me. It wasn't that pleasant, but like I said, he wasn't offering an excuse. And going back to how the perception of others defined us,

these moments, right? Me not wanting to look like I was being punk or not being someone to stand up for themselves and be disrespected. I met his energy with the same type of energy and demanded my respect that he was going to say, excuse me. And one word led to another. Now, mind you, I have this gun on me and the way he's behaving, his aggression and him standing six feet, eight inches tall.

And at this time I'm 16 years old, I'm like five, six, 135 pounds, soaking wet. I needless to say, I felt intimidated and I felt I was in a situation like ⁓ the David and Goliath. If this guy puts his hands on me or even take this gun, he may kill me. So I just figured if he see the gun, he may just bag down. And when I unzip my jacket, his reaction was totally different than what I was hoping it would be. And he became more aggressive. His girlfriend,

She became very hysterical. I found out later that was his girlfriend and she was trying to pull him away and he just snatched away from her and I pulled a gun out and I shot him twice. What I did know at the time is that this young man happened to be the number one basketball player, high school basketball player in the nation. His name was Ben Wilson, a tragic loss to the entire city of Chicago. It was one of those situations where the sensationalism around Benji being shot went throughout.

the whole community, the whole city, the whole country, the potential that this young man had would have taken him possibly all the way to the top. And to have this tragedy happen, His life, like, has so many people that built their dreams around it. To see someone with on that trajectory of making it and something like this happened was truly a tragedy. And I felt it from a different standpoint because I wasn't looking at

his potential. was looking at his humanity, like, man, I ain't never shot nobody. And I definitely don't want to see this young man die. Not because of his potential or what gift he has, but the fact that I don't want to be responsible for another individual losing their life. But unfortunately, and I'm going tell you, when we go back to the systemic issue around the value of life in certain communities, Benji was the number one basketball player in the nation in high school. But that day, Benji

was allowed to bleed almost three hours. He was sent to a hospital that didn't have a trauma surgeon. So he had lost so much blood internally, his mother had to make a hard decision of taking him off life support. And when you think about Chicago, the South side and the West side of Chicago has the most gun violence in any big city in the last six decades. There hasn't been under 400 homicides since 1965 in Chicago.

And you only got one major trauma center in a city like that, that on a daily basis witness trauma. Because of Benji and what happened, they changed some policies. Unfortunately, the loss of his life saved a lot of other people's lives because now it was mandated that any gunshot victim has to be taken to the nearest trauma unit. But Chicago only had one trauma unit. That was the Cook County Hospital on the West side. They just opened up a level one trauma center.

within the last 10 years on the South side, still today, 30 years after Benji's death. When you consider the fact that you have all these incidents of gun violence, and you only got one major, two-one trauma unit in a city like Chicago, something is very wrong. But I learned a lesson that day. Learn how to never again allow myself to be put in a position where I don't know how to deal with a confrontation without it leading to the most tragic outcome.

I can easily walk away because no one can really define me. I understand who I am. I had to suffer a lot and learn from that lesson. I hate that this young man lost his life. And I didn't know how to really reconcile that. I didn't know what I could do to pay for that other than the time. And I didn't think the time that I had did was really going to be enough time. I always felt like it was a sacrifice other than the time that I had to do because I'm still here and Benji isn't. And I did have a son too.

real quick, and I lost my son to gun violence in 2017. And I think that was kind of like what came full circle for me to understand the grief that I had inflicted on the family. And I felt like that was almost like my sacrifice to understand the pain that I had caused somebody else, because now I feel it. Billy, I can't imagine the pain of carrying that consequence of that day for so many years. I'm curious as a 16-year-old and then

for the next 20 years being in prison, what was going through your mind? What was the thought process, the emotions you were feeling, just your sense of identity at that, through those 20 years, can you walk us through that? I would say for the first five years, it was real difficult trying to understand my responsibility to another human being losing their life and just really being a believer and.

a higher power that I would have to answer to that. And what does that mean? Because sitting in prison, breathing and still being alive couldn't be the ultimate punishment for what I had there. But then I had a conversation with my grandmother and she just told me, I can't change what has happened. Forgive yourself to not, you're not that person. That mistake cannot be what defines you. That the sum of your mistakes cannot be what defines you. And I think from that point on,

I had to just, I can't change what happened. I just got to try to be a good person, learn as much as I can. And then I committed to just saying, in spite of the one life that I was responsible for losing, I want to try to save as many lives as I can. And that was before I came home from prison, not knowing that I would find myself really on the front lines of working with a lot of young men that was at risk that really is no different than a 16 year old Billy Moore and a

17 year old Benji Wilson to have that opportunity and the honor to work with these young guys to stand in the gap. And I realized that experience ain't always the best teacher. It could be learning from other people's experience that true wisdom can be found and how to make not to make mistakes because someone that you can trust have made that mistake. they showing you basically the right way and the course of not doing that. And that's what I've been doing to try to just pay back for what I've done.

Would you say that conversation with your grandmother was also another turning point in how you were going to use those two decades, not just to survive, but maybe to rebuild, to educate yourself, to reflect, to prepare for something? And was there a point when that really was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do with myself? Yeah, it was a weight that had been lifted off my shoulder of guilt, of just the anxiety of being responsible for

human life being taken away and then just being spiritual, reading the Bible, some of the great historic biblical figures like King David, who he was a man of war, but he was also a man at the apple of the creator's eye. Thinking about Joseph, who spent 20 years in prison, but had a gift for television and it won him favor with Pharaoh and to the point where he was able to save his whole family, even his brothers who had sold him off into slavery.

just being, and I never try to look at myself as being on no biblical level or no saint, but I just felt like there was some redemption for me in spite of what I'd done, the bad and horrible thing and tragedy of life being lost, me being responsible. There was still something that I could be redeemed from. I could learn from that and I can live my life and possibly help other young men not to repeat the mistake that I made. And I think I've been able to do that.

I've found my purpose in life. That's brilliant. And I'm curious, Billy, I would like to talk just a little bit about forgiveness. Like how did forgiveness, both giving and receiving, shape your personal healing? So as I mentioned, I had a son. And when my grandmother told me I needed to forgive myself, I still felt 20 years was not going to be. I always felt like it was a sacrifice that I was going to have to make.

for the life that I was responsible for taking. And because it was such a sensational case and everybody felt the impact of Benji's death, it was people that hated me, people that wanted to see me die. My first court appearance, it was a little old lady that worked for the Cook County Sheriff's Department of Baylor. And she told me to my face, you the boy that killed that young man? I hope they give you the death penalty and I'll be the one to pull the switch on you.

And this was that type of energy that was being shown to me as a 16 year old kid. And all I wanted people to see was that, man, I made a bad mistake. I made a bad decision. This is not who I am. But the emotions around such a young, gifted individual losing his life. And I was the reason why. And I took total accountability for what I did because I felt that I should have, like, there's got to be a bigger price for this. And I just wanted people to forgive me.

To look past my mistake, to see a 16 year old kid that had made a stupid decision, right, that costed me and this young man his life. The day that my son had got shot and I found out that he had died instantly in my heart, I forgave whoever was responsible for killing my son. Because I knew at that moment that my son, perpetrators of his killing was pretty much probably caught up in the same cycle of ignorance that I was caught up in. And if you read my book,

I dedicate my book to all those young men and young people who are caught up in the cycle of ignorance, who end up dying in that cycle of ignorance and never really understanding their full potential or what they can manifest into. Because then you didn't get a chance to manifest into his full potential. Maybe I have, but I had to pay for my crime. But it's a lot of people who want, and I couldn't hold any hatred or want to see any retribution.

for the people who had killed my son, because I would have been a hypocrite. Because actually I was doing the work around helping young guys to learn how to reconcile their differences without it leading to gun violence. And for me to then revert back to want to see the people responsible for my son to see any harm being done to them wouldn't be right. And trust me, the streets talk. I found out within a day or two what really happened with my son.

who was responsible for it. They had never made an arrest, but I had to tell some people, hey man, let that go. Ain't nothing I can do for my son. And I truly didn't hold any hatred in my heart because I understood the mindset of the young man that is out here, unfortunately killing people. A lot of these young people will grow up in these traumatic situations, just going through COVID and you see people living in a house together and being isolated from the world and all this crazy stuff happens.

You know how many people got divorced during COVID? Being stuck together and fighting and not being able to resolve their issues because of the crisis that was brewing throughout the world. And that's like what these neighborhoods in Chicago is like. Gun violence is like a virus. It's a public health crisis. And I talked about that. And it's like the way it has impacted people, right? That's kind of isolated. That it's like they stuck in these dying communities. They feel trapped.

Right? And it's not a secret that communities like that witness a high rate of crime, a high rate of gun violence. When you have communities that can thrive, you have diverse communities that have access to resources that allows communities to really be community. You don't see, you don't see things like that. Right. But when you have communities that doesn't have what it takes to really thrive and really be a community, that's where you have these problems.

And that's what we up against, not just helping young men to learn how to resolve conflict, but how to navigate communities that really people have turned their back on, society has. Billy, there's a lot right there. There's some heavy stuff. There's some resonance stuff. And I think a lot of people listening, think maybe even what's coming up for me is maybe not the same details, but feeling trapped by a past version of ourselves.

and trying to find a way forward. And there's that messy middle of, gosh, I think I want to be that person. My past is saying, this has happened and how do I work through that and navigate that? Does that resonate to you? Do you feel like you went through some of that? Unfortunately, yes, it does. And no, it doesn't apply to me. And the reason why I say that, because I went away for 20 years. I left the community, but the community didn't change.

for those who were stuck in the community. Yes, that is true. People do feel like this, I want to be this. Everything behind me won't allow me to move in that direction. If I messed up and went to jail, I'm being criminalized for my background. People are dying around me. I'm forced to now pick up a gun to protect myself. And then I'm taking the chance because if I get caught with this gun, I'll probably go back to prison. And it's like, I want something better for myself. And it's like,

There's not a lot of opportunities for me to be better. There's a lot of talent out here. It's a lot of people who have a gift to do things and help contribute, but it's not a lot of opportunities to allow those things to happen. Billy, want to just synopsis for our listeners out there. Billy grew up South Side of Chicago. 16, tragic day came. Gun violence caused a death of Ben Wilson. He spent 20 years.

In prison, your grandmother came and gave you some inspiring words of, ⁓ what do I do with that? And I'm going to dedicate myself to helping make sure young, specifically black men don't end up in this prison pipeline, if you will. And if I'm paraphrasing in an inappropriate way, please let me know. And you get out of prison, you've gone through forgiveness, forgiving of yourself.

forgiving of others and then your son is murdered. And you're forgiving whoever shot him. This cycle is going and now you're out of prison. You're, I want to dive into the what's next, working with Chicago CRED and how that came to be. And what's interesting, Billy, is in my field, I'm a physical therapist. I talk a lot about longevity and health span.

and physical, mental, emotional health. Like we're here to help people live better, longer lives. And one of the guests that I've recently spoke with is Dan Butler Jr. from the Blue Zones Project. And their team studies the world's longest living people, people that are living to their hundreds, centenarians in places like Ikea, Greece, Okinawa, Japan. And they're trying to understand what keeps people healthy, living to a hundred and beyond.

The truth is the people you're working with in Chicago aren't probably worried about living to 100. My guess is they're worried about living to 25. And I think that's what makes this conversation matter so much. In the blue zones, they've identified the two biggest predictors of a long life are one having a purpose and another one is having the right tribe. And for the young men you work with, I imagine those two things, purpose and tribe.

might not just be the key to longevity, but to survival itself. And I'm curious, how do you help them find that with the work you're doing today? That's a tough question. I remember when I was in school, I had read about how these centurions was living. Another thing, they talked about their social network, right? They lived in populations where people get along with each other. They were able to...

go and have lunch and laugh and talk and socialize, right? They were community people. The community in which we are experiencing gun violence in Chicago is highly isolated. And right, people aren't worried about living 100, they worried about seeing 25, right? The systemic issues that also impact these communities when we live in communities that has food insecurities, their food deserts.

So that impacts people health because now a lot of people have unhealthy eating habits. have diabetes, hypertension, high blood pressure, and all these things that dramatically reduce the length of your life, the longevity of your life. On top of gun violence, the stress of just trying to make sure that when you leave that your house, you're looking over your shoulder, you can come back and make it home later. But the purpose and the tribe that

exists you're right is all about survival in these communities, right? The purpose is to not die and if possible kill to stay alive and a tribe is basically with the same purpose. So what do we do to try to change the narrative around how people see themselves, what position and role they play within their community and how to change the narrative. And one thing I try to focus on is

A lot of these young men are young fathers and these young men love their children. They're so hands on. So I try to use their strength to help them understand their purpose. And what I do is I try to say, do you want your child to also be dealt the same hand you've been dealt in life? And what can you do to make sure that your child doesn't have to live the life you've been living? What can we do to help improve your situation and circumstances so that your children

don't have to follow suit and we can break this cycle, right? And it's hard, but it's possible, it's doable. Yeah. And so Billy, how do you build trust with someone who's been let down by every system? Family, school, society, like where do you start? How do you reconnect to hope? That just started with me, just building a good relationship, not over promising or over selling something.

I don't want to promise you anything. I want to over deliver. And like I said, if I can hack their minds to thinking different around how they've lost trust for the system, I try to use their kids as that's my cheat code. What is it that you want for your kids? What do you your kids? How can we make things different for your kids? And if we can help change the narrative for your kids, we changing the narrative for you, because you got to think different, you got to move different.

If it's possible, you can leave and move from a community that will hold you trapped, waiting to die to somewhere that would be better for you. So your kids don't have to be brought up in these same circumstances. But the problem with that is that a lot of the young people that I work with, we work with young men anywhere from 18 to 30 years old, right? We went from 18 to 25, but we will go so far as to 30. So let's look at eight.

15 to 25, that means 10 years ago, they was eight and 15 year olds, right? What happened in Chicago was 13 years ago. What happened in Chicago 13 years ago was that they closed 54 schools in mostly black and brown communities. And the young man that I worked with was students in these schools and it was because of the budget. They couldn't, for whatever reason, they didn't invest in them. And we look at budgets as more documents. So,

Are we investing in the future of these young people? Because if we're not investing in them, then on the back end, what do we invest in? We invest in prisons, right? We invest in, we invested in death to be honest, because I don't know how many young people over the last 13 years that was impacted, that was a student in Chicago public school system when they closed these schools, ended up dying and in prison, or just impacted by that phenomenon.

that now their life is such a struggle that they're trying to do something different. And maybe their kids, it's that much more harder for their kids to not be broken out of this cycle because those schools never open back up. That's so hard. You're taking away what could be a focal point. And now what are you going to replace that with? Yeah. And I think in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, before you can reach health, happiness, self-actualization, you have to have

the basic needs. I have to have safety. Am I seen? Am I connected to my community? Do I have trust to move forward? Can I fail and move forward? And it seems like the work that you're doing is all about building these bottom layers, if you will. And so they can move forward to that higher levels. Can you talk a little bit about Chicago CRED? Are you the alumni manager? No longer I'm not an alumni manager. I've been promoted.

Over two years since I've been promoted from alumni, man, I run my own site now. I'm a site manager. So the backstory on Chicago career was established by a guy by the name of Arne Duncan, who ran Chicago public schools. And under Arne, those under his administration is not when the schools closed, but he became the secretary of education when Obama became president. Arne Duncan is a white guy from Chicago, but Arne is a little different.

Arnie grew up, his mother was someone who taught Sunday school to black kids, right? And she realized that these young kids couldn't read. So she wanted to do something about it. And what she did was taught these kids how to read. And she opened up, just voluntarily opened up in a center to teach kids how to read. And Arnie, his brother and his sister, they grew up right there with his mother, helping black kids learn how to read. So Arnie grew up basically

His life was dedicated to service. And Arnie had a love for basketball. Arnie played basketball. Actually, Arnie is a very pretty good basketball player, right? He played 12 years in the professional league in Australia. But Arnie is only a few years older than me. So Arnie really, Arnie played basketball with Benji. They played in summer leagues together. They were friends. So when Benji died, Arnie lost a friend. And needless to say, Arnie hated me for years because of what happened.

They did a 30 for 30 on Benji back in 2012, a friend of mine who I became friends with named Cudi Simmons and Chike Oza. They directed the 30 for 30 Benji. And that was the first time anybody ever asked me for my side of the story. And I decided to tell it. And I was highlighted in that documentary. And Arnie told me when we finally met that when he watched the 30 for 30, when my part came on, he turned the TV off. He didn't want to hear nothing I had to say. And cause he was hurt.

He come from a basketball world. He understood that Benji was probably the best player to ever come out of Chicago. He was a friend of his. And he told me, said, you're in a 30 for 30. As soon as it comes on, they show a tournament Benji playing at Washington Park. And you see me, I'm the only white guy on the court. We were young, we were playing. And I went back in Washington, he's right. I could see Arnie playing, right? But Arnie, when he came back to Chicago to establish Chicago CRED, when he left the Obama administration,

Arnie said that he lost one student every two weeks to gun violence when he was head of CPS, Chicago Public Schools. And he wanted to do something to stop young, particularly young black men killing each other, right? So he started Chicago CRED. Now CRED means creating real economic destiny. It's an acronym that stands for creating real economic destiny. The name of CRED, Arnie said, what he realizes is that gun violence is not a criminal problem.

It's an economic problem. And what we're trying to solve is an economic problem. That's why he named it CRED, Creating Real Economic Destiny. So I had, when Arnie first opened up CRED in 2016, I ended up getting a job with an organization called the Intercity Muslim Action Network, who was doing community violence intervention, where they was doing reentry work. And Arnie wanted them to start working with younger guys.

18 to 25, they were only working with older guys coming home from prison. So Arnie started funding their organization and they opened up an opportunity for me to get a job. That's how I got my job at Arnie. Arnie had no idea that I was working over there until a guy who grew up in the community that I come from was working for CREA and he was like, Hey Arnie, Billy, it was at a peace march a month after my son had got killed that was hosted by a guy by the name of Father Flager who was real.

prominent in Chicago, a real community advocate. So we was at a peace march and I got introduced to Arnie and I asked him, did he know about my story? He was like, yeah, but I want you to tell me. So we marched together on this peace march and we talked and I told him about what happened. And he told me that he said, want to give you, I want you to come and speak to some of my young guys that I work with. And I came and I spoke to these guys and

Arnie opened his heart up to me. He's saying that I was for real about what I was doing. And I worked for EMA for three years and then got hired fully with Creed. And I've been with Creed almost six years now. Me and Arnie has been throughout the whole country talking about the work that we do. And honestly, I love Arnie and Arnie loves me. We fightin' to fight together. Arnie wrote the intro to my book. So he's a real good guy. I love that story. I hear forgiveness inside that.

And it's very powerful. I'm curious, what does healing look like on the streets of Chicago today? ⁓ that's a great question, Shana. I don't know, because Chicago still hasn't reached the point of healing. But I will tell you is that I think healing looks like when we are at a point to where people who live in these communities that witnessed the most gun violence can feel safe. And Chicago, for anyone who's ever been to Chicago,

It's a great city. People can come to Chicago, enjoy themselves and have a lasting memory of what a great city could be, right? There's 77 communities in Chicago, but 15 of those communities are those that drive the violence. They drive 85 to 90 % of the violence in Chicago. And those 15 communities are the ones that you see the most segregated, the most poverty stricken, the most full insecurity places.

where you have the right recipe for neglect, disinvestment, inequities and things of that nature. That's where it's happening. So I think when we talk about healing, if we can start fixing the systemic issues, people can start feeling safe because you don't see people killing each other. I'll give you a prime example. When people have a 17 % clearance rate of homicide, which means you got an 83 % chance of getting away with killing somebody.

That's not healing. People feel unsafe. So people have to resort to street violence, street justice, so to speak. When you have in other communities a 65 % clearance rate, when you kill somebody, it's a 65 % chance you're going to get arrested. And those are communities that you don't have all these systemic issues. So when we talk about healing, we want to see where people start feeling safe. And the only way people are going to start feeling safe is that the data is going to dictate that crime is going down.

violence is going down. And what I can say that we are on track to have a 25 year load of shootings and homicides and on track to possibly get under 400 homicides that hasn't happened in 65 years. So because of the work that we're doing, we're really having an impact. Billy, is that how you measure progress by those numbers or is there something that you track where this is the metric we're looking for to show progress? It's two things.

that you can measure progress. Of course, the numbers, Data is gonna dictate if you're being successful, you know, where money needs to be put at, what you need to continue to invest in, and what you shouldn't, right? So the data is in line, in spite of the national agenda that Chicago is so violent. But people know that if you live in Chicago, it's such a dramatic decrease from what we've been witnessing.

because of the work that we're doing. And then my other way that I measure it is when I work with these young guys every day and I start seeing the mindset different, I start seeing change talk, I start seeing young men who are vulnerable enough to say, want something different for myself. I don't have to posture and put this mask on that people expect me to be. I'm in a place to where I can look at the billy more and learn from his mistake. And I have to pay.

20, 30 years of my life before I get it right. So it can be measured in those two ways, the numbers, the data, and just being in front of these young men and seeing the human side in them. That's powerful. And I think the human side is what drives us and motivates us. I'm curious if there's one story on that human side, a story of hope that maybe reminds you why this work matters. man, I got quite a few of them. But I think one in particular is a young man who is currently in my program now.

And this young man has a real, what we call on the street level, he has a face. And what that means is his face is like wherever he's seen that people know him. They either want to kill him or they're going to give him his respect. This young man has a real face in the community. And I remember we got a call, Arnie got a call from the alderman, the local alderman, and said, hey, look, I had a meeting with this young man. He's causing a lot of hell in my community. Either he's going to get them going to jail, killing somebody.

or he's going to end up dead. And I had a talk with him. He wants help. Can you help him, Arnie? And Arnie, okay, I'm going to get my guys together. We're going to go talk to him. We want to talk to the young guy. This young man brought like 27 of his guys into my program. This was last September. And since then, he's a young rapper. He was putting out a lot of content that was negative and stuff like that. Since then, he's been a part of what's called a Unity movement in Chicago.

piece really pushing the young guys and his group to really take this serious and change. And because of his involvement, that group who was highly responsible for a lot of the violence that was in our service area has dramatically went down to zero. Billy, I think that's what redefining what's possible looks like. That is not just changing one person's life, but changing

the conditions, the culture that make despair seem almost inevitable. Yeah, that's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so Billy, for the young people listening, maybe parents, coaches, teachers who care about kiddos, what's one thing we can all do today to make our community safer and more hopeful? Just having an ear to listen without judging, trying to understand how we get to certain places.

Like you started off saying, okay, what's the backstory to this? Everybody has roots, situations has roots, right? How did we land where we at? And it's easy to sit back and not totally understand what happened, but we just judge based off what has happened. And I think sometimes we just got to try to, if we're not willing to help, we got to be slow to judge. We don't really fully understand situations.

Especially with younger folks, like when I talk about the guys that went to school and they had to, they was forced because their school was closed. There's so much for a young person coming to school and the night before witnessed his mother being abused and he probably haven't eaten in two days and he come to school and he's showing up a certain way and then he's being penalized because he's not given that opportunity to be asked what happened. You know, he is hearing this what's wrong with you.

It's so complex and humans were judging making machines, right? Like we just, see someone may make an immediate judgment and judge, but to slow down and wow, that's fantastic advice there. Another question for you, Billy, how do we help people believe that redemption or change is possible? I ask anybody, who was you five years ago? You're the same person today and who will you be or how do you want to be five years from now?

My crime is for public record, right? This out there for everybody to see. I may not see your mistakes, but I'm sure that you've done some things that you're not proud of, Redemption don't even have to be from a bad situation to a good situation. It's just about growth. It's about change. But if you weren't happy, if you're not happy with who you are today, and you decide to take action to change that, right?

That don't necessarily mean you changing from being a bad person to a good person. You just changing your circumstances because you're not satisfied with what they are to what something you want to be. People are kind of put in circumstances where they're forced to make decisions and they may not be the best decisions, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are horrible people, right? They just dealing with the hand and they've been dealt. So you make decisions. And I think that I always ask people, are you the same?

person you was five, 10 years ago. Of course not. You're not thinking from the same mindset. You're thinking from a level of maturity that's different than what it was then. Your circumstances may be different, so you're not making decisions based off those previous circumstances. Everybody wants better for themselves. whether you trying to go to school and gain a higher skill level to put you in a better position to provide for yourself.

But you may not have those opportunities, you might get out and hustle, but you're trying to hustle to get out of this situation and change your circumstances. And I just think that people gotta just understand, redeem yourself in terms of growth, constantly move and hopefully in the right direction. You know I'm saying? If you find yourself surviving in certain circumstances, try to just...

do what you can to change your circumstances so that you don't have to always have to look life from a survival standpoint and hopefully find yourself living and thriving. Yeah. Billy, your story reminds me that health in every sense, it just starts with, I like what you just said right there, five years from now, who am I the same person today who I was five years ago? And almost posing the question, who do I want to grow into five years from now? And I think underlying that

thriving before we can thrive, like we've got to belong to something bigger. The work you're doing is truly helping to build connection in communities that need it. And I'm just so grateful for everything that you've gone through to get where we are today and hopefully be better tomorrow. It's just wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. Billy, I'm curious. I want to do a little quick lightning round with you. Whatever pops to your mind first, we'll go with that answer.

I'm curious if there's a book, a quote, or a prayer that keeps you grounded. Yes, a quote by Frederick Douglass. I actually have it on my wall. It says, it's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. And resonates with me because I talk about the men and their kids, right? What do we want to do to ensure that we're not dealing them with the same hand we've been hit? If we can help invest in kids, it's easier to see them grow into

something that we can be proud of, then to try to help repair broken men because they come with a level of mistrust and they have so much baggage and trauma. But to finally make a breakthrough on something that's so simple as maybe not smoking weed for the day or showing up on time. But if we can build, it's easy to build stronger children than to repair broken men. Two, what gives you hope right now,

What gives me hope is that I woke up this morning and I know that we have a chance to make a difference. Every day you are given six feet above instead of you standing six feet above ground instead of six feet underground, it gives you hope. And then other people, you got to look at other people's circumstances. Some people's circumstance may be worse than yours. So it may not be all that bad for you. All right. If you could say one thing to the 16 year old version of yourself, what would it be? ⁓ man, learn how to think ahead of your failure.

Allow your intelligence to be superior to your emotions. Because a lot of times when we do things based off how we feel, we find ourselves having a full of regrets. But if we just give ourselves, we learn how to pause, put the pause button on our emotions and just start thinking our way through, we'll come up with better solutions. Well said. What does redemption mean to you today, Just working with young men who was like me, dead.

have somebody like me today to be able to talk to them, have without them judgmental telling them, you worthy of a chance. You should just believe that because I see it in you. You got to see it in yourself. So I've been given a great opportunity to work with these young men. And when they feel like things are working and they've made a change, it makes me feel good to know that I've been a part of that because I know what I've been a part of on the other side. So I came bringing back Benji.

the one life I took away. But if I can save as many lives as I can, I'm going to try to save as many as I can. And they'll never make up for that one. But those who I know that I've been a part of, they success and they change. They greatly love and respect me for that. And finally, Billy, what does redefine what's possible mean to you? Redefining what's possible is coming from being one of the most hated individuals in the city of Chicago to actually that not.

being what defines who I am now. People don't even, that's like such a distant thought of how I'm defined. The work that I've been able to do and what my name has become is more respectful than anything I've done in the past. Wow, Billy, this is great. Your story reminds us that no matter where we start, redemption and purpose are possible. You've devoted your life to helping young men build hope, belonging,

safety, three things every human being needs before they can even begin to dream bigger. And for our listeners who are inspired and want to take action, whether that's connecting with you, Billy, supporting your work or helping in their own neighborhoods, what's the best place to start? In your own heart, just making sure you're not really just judging people based off their circumstances. Understanding that your circumstances may be different than theirs, so.

It may not be an even playing field to judge them based off their circumstances. If you find yourself in a privileged situation, be very careful how you judge people who's less privileged than you. I love that. I love the heart. I love the being mindful of judging, putting ourselves in another person's shoes, like all powerful. And what I'm hearing is that changing lives doesn't start with just a policy or...

program or the statistics, the data that you were saying, it starts with that connection. It starts with people with one person choosing to show up, to listen, to care. And if you're listening right now, your guests, maybe that's your next step. Reach out to someone who's struggling, show up for a kid who's been written off, offer mentorship, forgiveness, or a second chance. Healing doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in connection. And Billy, I truly appreciate your courage.

your honesty, and the work you do every day to remind us that the story isn't finished until the lion speaks. And to our listeners, if this conversation moved you, please share it. Start a conversation in your own community because redefining what's possible isn't just about health or success. It's about choosing compassion over judgment, action over apathy, and love over fear. Thank you for joining us, and until next time, keep redefining what's possible.