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VIA CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

Former gang leader Andre Norman learned three early lessons growing up in poverty:

It’s OK to hit people. You have to protect yourself, because no one else will. And you don’t have to explain your actions to anyone.

He learned this by watching his father beat his mother and abandon the family without ever saying why. And he learned by watching white kids throw rocks at him on the way to school without anyone trying to stop them.

Norman shared his insights into the traumas that turn kids into gang members at a Saturday workshop put on by Charlotte’s Mount Peace Missionary Baptist Association.

His goal was the same as that of the 30 churches in the association – to help stop gang violence by showing young people a better path to follow.