General Davis was serving a sentence in Wyoming Correction Facility outside of Buffalo, New York when he got a visit from his mother.

He was a gang leader in Syracuse during the ’70s and ’80s, but still maintained a loving relationship with his mother. She never gave up on him.

The look of pain and disappointment on her face when she visited is what inspired him to change his life for good.

To Davis, this parental support is the main way to get kids off the streets. He started his nonprofit, Real Fathers, Real Men, seven years ago to hold workshops to encourage kids to stay in school or to get jobs, rather than getting themselves involved with gangs.

Davis has also written two books about gangs and children committing crimes, and a third book about police-on-children crime and children-on-children crime. This most recent book is projected to be published in November.

“We ask (the kids) questions at workshop: ‘How many of you here don’t have fathers that live at home?’ And almost all of the hands go up,” Davis said. “I believe that’s why we have the problems we have in the neighborhoods, because there’s no father in the house.”

Real Fathers, Real Men focuses on at-risk children — predominantly males — who are raised in single-parent homes and need supervision or male role models. Davis often promotes his work through lectures and workshops in middle and high schools, but also works with the kids in the classrooms to get them to focus.

“No story is ever the same,” Davis said. He’s heard stories such as: “‘My mom turned her back on me,’ ‘My father abused me,’ ‘I watch my father abuse my mother,’ ‘My brother abused me.’ You name it. ‘I watched my sister get raped,’ ‘My mother sold my sister for drugs.’”

Demetry Spears had a history of getting suspended from Danforth Middle School in Syracuse until Davis helped him turn his grades and attitude around.

“I was running the halls, not listening to the teacher, not doing my work,” Spears said. “He was taking us to hockey games and movies if we did good in school. Get good report cards, he’d take us out to eat or something.”

Now, Spears said he wants to be a doctor when he grows up.

Davis knows the issue is not strictly between parents and children. He said sometimes the teachers don’t know how to work with inner-city students and will be quicker to punish them, especially if they are black. Davis added that the teachers need proper training to know how to give students what they need.

Davis recognizes the same issue among the police force and said these disparities can play a part in children getting themselves into trouble.

Davis works on finding the proper resources that each student individually needs in order to better their focus and determination. He said his nonprofit is no better or worse than any other drug or gang preventative program.

“I think any program that’s trying to help kids get off the streets is good,” he said. “Whatever you’re doing to help the kid is good. I don’t have what (resources) you have, you don’t have what I have, let’s just put them all together like a big puzzle. Everybody’s got a piece to play, then you got the big picture, you can see everything nice and clear.”

Clifford Ryans, founder of OG’s Against Violence, performs the same kind of services as General Davis does. Ryans walks the streets of Syracuse every day, keeping an eye on kids. Ryans and Davis sometimes work together in lectures or workshops.

“When you’re dealing with what we’re dealing with, there’s a lot of stress and everything else that comes with that stress,” Ryans said. “You have to be built for that. You have to be … strong mentally as well as physically and it takes a lot.”

Ryans said that there are some people within the community that don’t believe in Davis’s hard work, which can set the improvement back because people will be hesitant to support or fund his project.

Davis can be found at Danforth Middle School every Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., keeping the students in check and preventing violence among them. He’ll go to basketball and hockey games, or to the movies with a handful of children, just to keep them off the streets and give them something fun to do.

Davis pays out of pocket just to make sure the kids have eaten after school. More often than not, they haven’t.

Davis’ sponsors help pay for the activities for the students. His work has changed a lot of students for the better, but Davis has identified some areas that could improve. He said he and his team are not so good with paperwork or keeping track of the children after several years. But he has seen some kids who have since graduated college and were elated to tell him that his workshops and programs worked.

The biggest challenge for Real Fathers, Real Men is to not only have children understand the information ex-gang leaders give them, but to get their parents on the same page as Davis in order to drive the message home. When the children grow up in an environment of hate and crime, it’s all they know, Davis said.

“The work is trying to squeeze and purge that disease out of them, by just showing them love,” Davis said. “That’s the bottom line, all they need is love. Someone to be there for them, care for them, support them, give them that love that the father wasn’t there to give them, or the mother doesn’t know how to give because she wasn’t loved, so on and so forth.”

Although Davis’s mother died three years ago, his love for her is still as strong as ever. He said his mother’s love and support made it so easy for him to turn his life around. Even though she is gone, he is still supporting the children who need that support themselves.

“I’ll die doing this work, because it’s the only way I can see myself giving back to the things I took away, or bad impressions that I’ve made,” Davis said.

Published on October 2, 2016 at 8:23 pm

tathomps@syr.edu