Vol. 2, No. 1 • Fall 1997
Young Man Turns from Gang Life to God's Work
by Flo JohnsonWould like to put David Harris' photo here.
David Harris is writing a book about his life. It starts with an event he doesn't remember, but one he continues to think about as an adult.
He and his sister, Katrina, were abandoned by their mother when David was 2 years old. When the police found them, they had been alone for several days and were dirty and hungry. They were turned over to social services and later placed in foster homes.
"Nothing good ever happened to me until I got saved," said Harris, whose life has made a complete turnaround since he got out of prison two years ago. "My life was depressing...A lot of people tried to help me, like MaryAnn Black, who is a close friend of mine, and police officers...but what I wanted somebody to do for me was find my mother. I loved her. I still love her today. Regardless of what happened, I want to see my mother. I want to ask her 'Why?' and tell her I love her."
Harris, 23, went to prison in 1991 on a second-degree murder charge. He was only 17. He and a drug dealer from New York were in a turf battle on Rosendale Avenue.
"We were in an argument and I thought he reached for a gun so I pulled my gun and shot me," Harris said.
Prison was not a new experience for Harris.
"The first time I was in jail was when I was 11," he said. "From 11 to 16 I was in and out of reform schools, detention centers and hospitals."
At 11, Harris tried to kill himself by taking an overdose of Tylenol and by cutting his wrists. "I was angry toward God. I felt he didn't love me to let this happen," he said. "In school I was a good student, but my conduct was bad. I was...like the school bully."
At various times in his early life Harris attended Pearsontown, Githens, Lowes Grove, Jordan and Southern (Durham, North Carolina schools). He graduated from high school while he was in prison.
But in 1995 when Harris got out of prison, he brought back to freedom more than a high school diploma. While he was serving the last 14 months of his incarceration in the correctional unit on Guess Road, he had a life-changing experience.
"Through all the time I was in prison, I always read the Bible and went to the prison church services, because I was raised in the church," Harris said. "By the time I got to Guess Road, I was thinking a lot. I had not forgiven myself for what I had done. I felt bad because I never wanted to kill anybody. I had hurt people, but I was not so cold that I wanted to take a life."
One night, Harris had a dream. In his dream, he was in a dark place and was falling straight down toward a bottomless pit. Before that, he had dreamed that he got out of prison, got shot and died.
"After the dreams, it came to my attention that God was showing me if I did not change my life I would get out and get killed and go to hell."
"I started hollering in my dream...I asked God to save me...I didn't want to go to hell. I woke up crying. That was when I accepted Christ in my life."
Harris' prison life up to this point had been a continuation of the rebellious life he had led on the streets.
"I got in fights. I was gambling and loan sharking. I would loan $5 and get back $8. I gambled with cards. I bet on football games. I was content with hustling," he said, "something I learned on he streets."
"I had seen a lot of stuff in prison, like riots and lots of homosexuality. I hung out with a lot of people from Durham and we walked around as a gang. After the dreams, I told all the guys, 'I don't gamble no more.' Some of them laughed at me, but after a while they started to see my sincerity and started to respect me. I started reading the Bible more and started to sing in the church services. I began blessing people with my testimony."
Eight months later, Harris was out of prison, still carrying a deep-felt need to connect with his biological mother. "My father died while I was in prison and I don't remember my real mother," Harris said.
His leads about her whereabouts are sketchy. Her name is Mary Dawson and he thinks she was originally from Virginia. She and his father met while both were serving time in a Virginia prison.
"I'm still looking for my mother," he said. "Some say she was Indian and some say she was white. One time she kidnapped me and my sister from our foster mother and took us to Ohio. I was so young I don't remember her."
Harris said that if he had money, he would get professional help in the search for his mother.
"My father died from drinking too much. He was not there for me, but I still loved him. I always wanted a father and a normal family. I tried to look to my foster mother as being my mother, but it didn't work out. My foster mother died."
Coming back to Durham (North Carolina) after prison was not easy, Harris said.
"I knew I would be talked about," he said. "A lot of people in the neighborhood and the church didn't believe in me. They set a time limit before I would get in trouble again. I had always been a troublemaker."
"I had to cry many nights and stay on my knees praying," he said. "I felt like no one wanted to be around me and that I would never accomplish anything."
One of Harris' first decisions was to join evangelist and gospel singer Shirley Caesar's choir. For a year he was a member of her church, Mount Calvary Holy Church in Raleigh.
"She was one of the people who saw I still had a chance," Harris said. "I began to know that God really had a purpose for my life. She gave me a lot of motivation and a lot of encouragement."
David Harris Outreach Ministry includes a gospel singing group, The Voices of Glory, featuring Harris, Rekila Goodman, Laurita Howard and Jatoya Foust.
"Gospel music expresses my feeling," Harris said. "It is a talent that God gave me. I have touched a lot of young people through my ministry. I have turned something bad into something good. I am somebody," he said.
When he's invited to speak at churches or for youth groups, Harris shares his Christian testimony and life story.
"My life testimony talks for itself and gets their attention once I tell them what I'm doing now," he said. "No matter what you are going through in life, what you are experiencing, God loves everybody. My best advice is to invite God into your life."
Harris, who is a part-time employee of Quality Painting, is finishing up his book, "How God Changed My Life." A play he wrote, "Old Time Brothers," is now in rehearsal at Bell Yaeger Baptist Church, where Harris is an associate minister.
"This is my first play, but I've written a lot of poetry," he said. "Writing poetry is something I did as a child growing up. I started writing because I felt so depressed and sad to cheer myself up."
This man, who once belonged to a street gang called "Bad to the Bone," and who, as a teen, thought nothing of 'packing a piece' and jumping into a drug-related shoot out, has big plans for his future. He will do some musical recording, he said, will continue to write and speak and in the near future will build a church.
He will also continue to search for his biological mother.
"God has given me a vision of one day being a church pastor," Harris said, "not a traditional church as far as denomination goes...not a church stressing what people can wear to church...just a church teaching the word of God and getting people to receive Christ into their life."
Yet another activity in Harris' future will come in September when he will be the keynote speaker at the national Independent Living conference in Orlando, Florida.
Nancy Carter, a coordinator for Independent Living, a project that helps persons who grow up in foster homes get a strong footing in life, said that Harris has all the life experiences that could tag him a loser.
"He was chosen because in spite of all these ingredients, he's still a winner," she said.
The David Harris Outreach Ministry can be reached by calling (919) 683-3917 or addressing correspondence to 3917 Fayetteville Road, P.O. Box 3827, Durham, North Carolina 27702.
� Durham Herald Company, Inc. Reprinted with permission from the Durham Herald-Sun, April 5, 1997.
Copyright � 2000 Jordan Institute for Families
