Lightning But No Rain
Theresa Allison
Founder of Mothers Reclaiming Our Children (Mothers ROC) Mother of gang truce architect Dewayne Holmes
(Amazing black hat and bracelets on both arms.
Beautiful rings.)
Mothers ROC came about right after my nephew was
k**ed,
November the 29th of '91.
After the d**h of my nephew, my son
Dewayne
thought about a peace among,
you know, the, the guys in the project--
I don't want to say gangs--
the young men.
The truce, they started meeting every Sunday,
so I thought about
a group of mothers gettin' together,
so I thought about
the words
Reclaiming Our Children.
I knew that there was
a lot of kids going to prison,
a lot of kids going to the cemetery
by the hands of our enemy,
the unjust system.
[...]
When we came back from the funeral,
we had a demonstration,
so I had a
great coalition.
I mean, I,
I mean it was . . .
I'm tellin' ya,
I'm tellin' you eight hundred fifty people,
nothin' but Spanish people,
that caravan,
I had white folks!
That in itself . . .
They don't want,
they don't want the peace,
they don't want us comin' together.
So after that they wanted my son more.
[...]
They knew he was,
they knew he was Dewayne HOlmes,
they knew he was Sniper!
I said, "Look, I'm not gonna move.
You not gonna k** my son like you k**ed my nephew."
So the police happened to pull the car up a little bit and hit
my leg.
Dewayne said, "Don't you hit my mother!"
But we, I already told him, "We gonna turn the car over,
Dewayne,
we gonna turn it over."
They were not gonna k** my son.
And that was their intention, to k** my son,
they still wanna k** my son,
they do! (She cries)