(inspirational music) (inspirational music continues) (inspirational music continues) >>Welcome to "The Legacy Series: Living a Legacy".

I'm your host, Bremante Bryant.

In this hour, we will chronicle the lives of an ordinary father and son.

Or are they?

The two are on a remarkable journey that will ultimately be the beginning of their legacy.

Their story begins in the early to late 1980s in the nation's capitol at the height of the crack epidemic.

But that's not where their story ends.

This is the story of Tony Lewis Sr. and Tony Lewis Jr. You know Tony, can you remember when you first met him?

>>When I met Tony Lewis Jr., it was as a result of the work that he was doing in the community.

I don't know exactly when it was, but you knew him because he was woven into the fabric of the District of Columbia's community with all the things that he was doing in terms of his activism, helping people, whether it was helping to feed people during Thanksgiving, helping to identify people who needed support during the holidays, his advocacy for people who were serving periods of incarceration and their families, and the impact of mass incarceration, and the war on drugs on the District of Columbia, and families like his, mine, and so many others across our city.

>>So Angel, here we are.

What is the story of Angel and Tony?

>>Oh my gosh.

It is a story of serendipity and community activism and sister brotherhood and love and all things magical.

Like, Tony and I, we fit so well together.

Like, we are, like, the same person.

He's the boy version of me.

Tony's impact on the community is easy, right?

And I think it's easy because Tony shows up authentically as himself, and because of his experiences, because of his heart, because of what he values and who he values, like, he just shows up, and things get done because of his presence.

Like, Tony's always going to speak up for those who are voiceless, he is always censoring those who are forgotten, and that's never not gonna be who he is.

Since I've known Tony, which has been, you know, at least 15 years, that has always been who he is, before the cameras, before social media, before there was the, you know, the notoriety and the free Tony Lewis movement, there was still Tony Lewis, my friend, who was in the streets, fighting for those of us who no one else wants to fight for.

>>So Jessica, tell us, how did you and Tony meet?

>>So, 2011, I was invited by my best friend to a coat drive that she was doing with a few other folks, including Tony.

So I came, brought some stuff, and she was like, "You know, there's this great guy who does a lot of local activism," and I catered on the side at that time.

She was like, "I think he's looking for a caterer."

And I was like, "Okay, well, let me go ahead and meet him."

And he's standing in front of me, and I did my due diligence in advance, see his Twitter page, he has on his suit, these little personality glasses, and she introduces me to someone, I'm not really aware that it's Tony at the time.

He has on a white tee, some Timberlands, some jeans, and I'm talking to him, and I was like, talking to my girlfriend, I'm like, "So where's this Tony Lewis guy?"

And he was like, "I am Tony Lewis."

And I'm like, "Okay, sorry about that."

So we just started talking, talked about the catering stuff, and as we became friends, I mean, it was just very granular.

Like, I'm talking to him, not realizing his whole backstory.

And then as the weeks go by, I'm seeing attention that he's getting while we're out, and I'm just like, okay, there's more to him than this.

And then he talked to me about his whole life, and that really, you know, I have to say, I was attracted to him in general, and who he was and what he was doing, but then to hear his story about how he grew up, all of the challenges he faced, to see him come out on the other side of all of it with such a positive image, a positive personality, always willing to help, there was just something so beautiful.

I've never really experienced that when dating anybody before.

And you know, again, I grew up in the suburbs, so I was really shielded from a lot of the stuff that he told me about, so.

But again, it just kind of spoke to who he was, and it just, you know, and it's who he is still to this day, so.

>>All right, Tony, so I'll let you pick up.

So again, we've heard so much about Tony Lewis from others, but today, even with all that you've done, all that you're doing, how would you describe Tony Lewis?

Who is he today?

>>A man that values his family, particularly, you know, obviously my wife and my children, and my family members in general.

My friends, my community.

A fighter, a serving leader, someone who's thoughtful, always on a quest to learn more and grow from every interaction.

And just a man that's trying to be his best at all times.

But also very, very, very realistic about being flawed also, right?

And I think for me, that's great, because I keep all my flaws in front of me, always my weaknesses, always trying to work on those, right?

But recognizing that they're there, right?

'Cause I'm a human being.

And giving myself that kind of grace and room.

I'm not on a quest for perfection, right?

I'm just trying to be the best me.

>>What was Tony like?

What was growing up like for you?

Let's just say in the '80s when you were just little Tony.

>>You know, growing up in an environment where I had two young parents, you know, a father that was, at that time, obviously, I don't know this, but my father's in a lifestyle of criminality, at the end of the day, you know, being a major drug dealer in this city.

And I brought that up because that's sort of, like, built out the framework of my life.

>>The name Tony Lewis is ubiquitous with the District of Columbia, especially for folks who are DC natives like myself.

I grew up not too far from here, probably a mile from where Tony grew up on Hanover Place.

And it wasn't Tony Lewis Jr. who I came to know first, it was Tony Lewis Sr., whose name was one of legend in the District of Colombia.

>>Tell me what it was like for you, I'm here on Hanover Place, but you grew up here.

What was it like for you growing up on Hanover?

>>Hanover Place, it was, from what I thought, it was really family oriented in some ways, but it was also, you know, a lot of illegal activities.

That was the main thing about the street.

A lot of illegal activity.

You know, whether it's drug sales, whether it's robbery, you know, and violence and a whole lot of things, which, you know, are I guess typical to any inner city neighborhood.

But it was that sense of family around Hanover Place back then also, and it was like normal stuff to us, though.

This is all we knew and this is all we saw, so the criminal activity and element, it was, like, normal.

And so, you know, that's what it was for the most part for me.

>>Tell me how you and Tony's mom met.

>>That's something too.

Well, we lived on opposite sides of the street.

Even though I guess Simone, that's her name, Simone was like one year older than me, but Simone was always hanging with the older girls and everything.

And so believe it not, she used to send me to... >>This call is from a federal prison.

>>Excuse me for that recording.

>>That's okay.

>>She used to send me to the store, "Go get me this from the store," then pay me some money to go to the store, even though she was just one year older than me, but like I said, she seemed like she was the older 'cause she used to hang with older girls and things like that.

But anyway, yeah, that's how we met.

And of course, and then I started being around her brother, Big Boo, I started being around him, Alan Hinton, and started, you know, coming in their house and things like that, but we had already met, me and her, before that, but then that really kinda, like, we got a closer relationship somewhat.

And again, like I said, we always, everybody on the street knew each other, and it was always like that family atmosphere for the most part.

>>And then you became a family man, Tony comes along.

>>Yeah, Tony comes.

>>What was fatherhood like for you?

>>At first, it was scary.

It was scary because I didn't have no job.

I didn't know nothing about a job, you know?

I guess, what, I was about 17.

And again, on our block, job was just like a foreign word.

Nobody worked, you know, so everybody did illegal stuff.

You know what I'm saying?

So yeah, so like, again, like I said, at first it was scary, and then when he was born, you know, it just turned into, I'm like, you know, every time I would look at him, I'm seeing me, and I'm like, "Oh, man, I got a son, this is my son right here."

And you know, from that point forward, just seeing him and knowing, man, I gotta step my game up, I gotta be a father, I gotta be everything, even though I don't know how to be that because I never had a father, you know?

But I just had that instinct and I had that love to be like, you know, I would kind of like... And it's kind of, you know, just to speak about an animal, like a dog or whatever the case may be, just that instinct that they have, and you'd be like, just an animal, but they love those puppies and is gonna protect those puppies, gonna make sure that puppy eat.

If they don't even eat.

And that's just, like I said, I had no teaching of how to be a father, but I had that instinct like that.

And that's what's always been in me for my son, that love and that care and putting him first.

So, it started off scary, and then it turned.

I had to, you know, I had to make it happen.

And I just see me every time I see him, and I got to, you know, it was just pride and joy.

That's what it is for me.

>>I'm the only child as well.

I think that's important to note.

So I was doted on, I had two loving parents.

I got anything and everything that I wanted.

Spent a lot of time with my parents.

A mother that always focused in on education and flashcards and I read early and challenging me to read signs when we were driving, challenging me to remember how to get to and fro different places, right?

But part of that also spoke to sort of this ever present danger in terms of the lifestyle that my father had, where we lived in a time where family members, children, wives, girlfriends, whatever, would get kidnapped for ransom and things of that nature.

You know, growing up and being around my dad, his friends and everything that they were involved in, spending a lot of time with them, just seeing things sometimes probably that I shouldn't have seen, but also had a dad that always tried to shield me from those things, but they still was, like, ever present.

>>In your relationship with Tony, it had to be a relationship through phone calls, right?

Through visits.

>>Yes.

>>And through those phone calls- >>Letters.

>>And letters and visits.

And so you're seeing your son, right, grow up from a distance in some ways.

But through those interactions with Tony, did you see something in him, that passion for him to be involved in the community, to make a difference, to do something different in terms of having an impact on others that many, they don't take that path?

>>Right.

To be honest, from the beginning, Tony was 8 1/2, nine years old at my time of incarceration.

And again, he's just a kid, you know?

But those 8 1/2 or nine years that we had together, I always tried to show him certain examples.

Not of my criminal activity, but of, you know, someday becoming a man, having morals and principles, you know, caring, putting family first.

Always tried to show him those things to, you know, always be good to people.

And so we had a very, very wonderful relationship, very loving, you know?

Always hanging out, doing so many things, whether it's the Super Bowl, whether it's championship fights, whether, you know, everything that I felt that I deserved, I felt my son deserved it, you know?

But again, not wanting him to see, you know, the element of the criminal lifestyle that I lived, but I know he was seeing it, 'cause he wasn't dumb.

Very intelligent.

Very intelligent at his age.

But I did try to shield him from that.

And you know, it was just all I could do was what I knew.

And to be honest, at 26, I would say I knew a lot about street life, but I didn't know much about being a father and things like that.

I was just going along with my instinct.

And when you have your love for your child, you know, everything good has to come off of that as far as instinct, so that's what I just always, I just wasn't thinking about what I had to do concerning him or providing for him or whatever the case may be.

It's just do, it's just automatic.

>>I was a happy kid, spending a lot of times with my family members, my cousins.

Being an only child, a lot of my cousins really served as, like, siblings for me.

And you know, getting a ton of exposure.

We traveled a lot, went to a lot of sporting events.

I was a big boxing fan, big Sugar Ray Leonard fan, Mike Tyson.

Saw them in their prime, and we would go to their fights, go to the Super Bowl, go to the Bullets games when they played at the Capital Center.

You know, things like that.

>>So you were doing it all.

>>I had an incredible childhood.

>>When'd you realize though, Tony, that you sort of lived a different life than many of your other friends in the neighborhood?

>>Yeah, immediately.

I always knew that.

I never was like anybody in my friends, my peer group, while they was at school, while they was around my way, I just was always different.

On Hanover, like, I always had more than everybody.

I went to Catholic school, and so that was a distinction.

I felt like I learned things that they didn't.

I went places that my friends didn't.

At school, all of their parents had jobs, you know what I'm saying?

Their parents were married for the most part.

Things like that.

>>Did you ever question that though?

That part of it, did you go- >>I didn't question it, because whatever it was was my normal.

I kind of looked at them strange.

Like, oh, okay.

Or you know, my dad had five cars, you know?

Or I would talk to them, and again, I don't know that everybody's life isn't like mine, right?

And you have conversations about, you know, what you into, what you do with your parents, where does your dad take you, what you got for Christmas?

Whatever it was, my situation was just different.

But my dad would always talk to me about the importance of not looking at things, right?

Materialistic things as like something that gave you value, right?

And I always wanted to share.

So if I was around people who didn't have what I had, you know, my sort of giving started very early.

Particularly around my way.

Like, I would have money all the time, and like, take everybody to the corner store, you know, or the ice cream truck come around, whatever it was.

>>Oh, so you were the guy we all wanted to be around.

>>Definitely, definitely.

But it also came with, you had guys who would also, like, you know, resent that to a certain degree, right?

But I was a tough kid, too, so I, you know.

That was also established really early.

Around here, we put the boxing gloves on early, so that you had to, like, learn how to, like, engage in that way on Hanover.

And my nickname's Slug, right?

Started off Slugger, right?

But my nick, everybody still around here to this day called me Slug, that's my name for everybody who know and love me.

And that came from, you know, us boxing, and you know, I kind of could hold my own as a little guy.

But I had to, 'cause people would try you, 'cause people resent, like, "That's Tony's son."

You know, everybody always, like, showing him attention, you know?

You know, but I had to deal with that as a youth.

But this community always has, like, held me up and given me confidence in who I was, you know what I'm saying?

>>You go to Catholic school, you know, your whole school life makes you different.

>>Sure.

>>You talked about your household sort of environment made you different.

>>Yeah.

>>Then you become an adult, and now you sort of gotta navigate that world.

Was there something that you had to be conscious of how to sort of navigate the world, or again, did you always know the direction that you were headed?

>>Wow, that's an incredible question.

For me, adulthood started in my childhood.

I had to take on adult-like things very early.

>>So tell us about that pivotal timeframe in 1989 when your life takes a dramatic shift from a stable life for Tony and his mom to now what happens, tell us about that.

>>Right.

Again, I'll say the word scary, you know what I'm saying?

Because even, you know, being a seasoned person in the streets, and you know... You know, having a lot of friends that been incarcerated before and knowing people that's been incarcerated, going to prison to see them and all this kind of stuff, but I had never been incarcerated myself until that time.

And just being snatched from life and then to incarceration, oh man, like I said, it's scary.

It's stressful, you know?

And all my thoughts are really not so much about myself but about my son and, of course, his mother and, you know, other family members.

People who depended on me and everything, and now, you know, I'm in this whole mess of trouble, and, you know, what's gonna happen with them?

You know, how are they going to be able to make it as we have been doing and everything?

It's a tremendous shock and just everything bad you can think of.

Incarceration is terrible.

It's, you know, the unknown, not knowing how long you gonna be in prison, not knowing where you gonna be in prison at.

It was just so many things, and like I said, it was all new for me even though I knew people who, all my life, that's what you grew up around on Hanover Place, people in and outta jail and people, you know, spending large amounts of time in jail, but again, it never had happened to me until April 15th, 1989, Saturday.

I'll never forget it.

>>My father went to prison when I was like nine, approaching nine, right?

He went to jail in April.

I turned nine in May.

That started a digression of all that I knew.

My mom did her best.

She did everything she could to sort of keep up a certain lifestyle, which is like impossible to do, and that broke her, you know what I mean?

She started to, you know, battle mental illness pretty soon after his incarceration and probably was going on prior, but that traumatic experience exacerbated that.

>>I mean, I didn't know until years later the stories he told me of how he had to deal with the schizophrenic mama, and I was just so, I don't know, it kind of disturbed me in the sense that he was that strong to do that 'cause most kids not at nine years old, you know?

>>And so a lot of things, I had to like earn my way to being in terms of like getting to technical adulthood.

I grew up in a town where this city was the murder capital of the United States in a community that was like in the bullseye that I lost friends to gun violence starting at 10 years old, and we grew up where you didn't become an adult at that time in this city age wise, but making choices for yourself.

Even then, like when I went to Gonzaga, like my mom, that was her dream, right?

My mom got me there, right?

That was her dream.

>>Wasn't your dream?

>>Not at all.

>>You wanted to be in public school >>Couldn't be.

>>with your buddies?

>>Yeah, exactly.

I didn't even know Gonzaga existed, even though it's four blocks from here.

>>Gonzaga's up the street, right?

>>Yeah.

Didn't even know it existed.

And when we went to orientation, I'm like, "Like what do these people talk about?"

I ain't never been around white peers, like white people my age in my life.

>>And I wanna stop you for a minute because I think, when you talk about your mom, right?

And the challenges that she's had, it's almost amazing, too, that your mother had the foresight to see that, "This is where I want you to be."

>>Yeah.

My mother, you know, was always a dreamer, right?

And for some people her dreams were unrealistic, you know?

And even that maybe, but I remember like being in the office and talking to one of the nuns in my school, her name was Sister Cooper, and she was just telling my mother, and this time, my mother is like really going through it, but she's still kind of like functional.

But, you know, Sister Cooper has no idea what's going on at home, and my mother at this time was on the verge of losing her job.

She was driving a school bus.

She got a job after my father went away, but she wound up losing a job.

I'm saying that to say this.

To go to Gonzaga, which is have a hefty price tag then and of course now, but it's like there was no way that we really could even afford to go there, right?

And we applied at Gonzaga and St. Albans 'cause she told my mother that Carroll and DeMatha wouldn't be challenging enough for me.

I remember this.

I'm trying to go to Dunbar, you know?

Period, right?

Anyway, this happens.

I go to Gonzaga, and what I was saying was that like that was like a whole nother world for me, but I'm in control.

I'm doing everything that had to be done.

My grandmother was like my primary caretaker for me and my mother for real at that time.

I'm like 14, but my grandmother, like she's just happy that I'm going to school.

>>My mother would get off of work seven in the morning, get in the car, and go all the way across the town where he was living with his mother at the time to take him to school.

She'd be so tired, she almost be going to sleep, but she would go get that boy every morning after she done done a shift to seven in the morning.

>>You know, my people around here not even going to school.

I got homies that didn't even go to middle school, you know what I mean?

Again, this is the height of the crack epidemic, right?

So their moms, our community's dealing with addiction.

You know, I got friends that, literally, the last grade they went to in school was 6th grade, right?

This is who I'm with every day.

So for me to be in Gonzaga and be in this position to go there, whatever the case may be, right?

There's no really blueprint for what's next, right?

And my mother is continuing to get deeper and deeper into her illness.

And so throughout my high school career, whatever I wanted to do or didn't wanna do, it's some things that if I had my parents in the way that I had them prior, I would've done a lot of things differently, but I was making a decision.

My grandmother knew what I was going through, the stress, the pressure we were under, you know, the fact that I was still going there and getting the grades, whatever the case is.

Like she wasn't trying to put nothing else on me.

Aside from that, nobody else had ever did nothing different, right?

Nobody else from where we from had ever been in a position to be in a school like that.

The idea of college wasn't even really, I mean, it was a thought, but not for me, you understand?

But I was just trying to get outta high school, and again, in that time in this city, young men were dying, and even now today, young men are still dying in this city, but we were dying at 15, 16, 17 or killing at that same age, right?

And my friends were going to jail for either murder or getting murdered.

And so that's why I'm saying when I got to be technically an adult, it was like a breath of fresh air in one regard.

The other, but I had no plan, none.

I had no plan, you know?

I think human beings are naturally cooperative, right?

It's been the one thing like as a species that's allowed us, well, I guess, that and projectile weapons but that has allowed us to like inhabit the earth, if you will.

It's like innate.

And so no matter what people hear, whatever, like people do what they see, and what I saw, right?

Was people get involved in the street economy, period.

Was no men around me that had jobs.

There was no professionals, there was no college graduates, you know, and if a guy had a job, if he had a job, he didn't keep it long.

It was nothing that had dignity, and so that's not what I wanted to be.

I wanted to be just like my Uncle Boo, my dad, Cornell, you know, whoever come from, I just wanted to be them or at least I wanted to have the impact that they had.

And ultimately, I got a job through one of their friends, ironically enough, doing violence interruption, so on a peer-to-peer level, and that changed my life.

And some shout out to Fat Rob 'cause, talking to my grandmother.

I found out later my grandmother, you know, I was hanging out too much, you know what I mean?

Like, everybody knew that I had something different, but it was no vehicle for that to be expressed, right?

So again, I'm doing what everybody else do.

But I got that job, and I saw the impact that I could have, and I never looked back, you know what I mean?

That was 23 years ago.

That changed my life.

>>I remember my coworkers.

They used to always say, "Bonnie, that boy is so special," say, "Bonnie, he gonna be something in this city one day."

They said that at, he was about, well, 10 or 11 them come in there, and it was just so amazing that when I look at his life today and I say to myself, "God, they seen that at nine years old."

Tony was something as a child.

He really was.

>>Talk a little bit about the importance of the kind of work that Tony does that has to be done really, you know, on that ground level and what that does for public officials and public policy in which that environs those environs that you work.

>>The work that Tony does is not as an elected official, but it informs so much of the work that I do as an elected official on the council of the District of Columbia.

I'll give you an example.

When I first became the chair of the council's Committee on Judiciary & Public Safety, we were really grappling with a gun violence epidemic in the District of Columbia.

One of the first people I called was Tony Lewis Jr. to talk about those issues, and the insights that I got from Tony and others like Tony who cared deeply about the city and wanted to be a part of the solutions to address gun violence and the systemic issues affecting our city resulted in a landmark piece of legislation that ultimately got passed by the District of Columbia unanimously, which is the Neighborhood Engagement Achieve Results Act.

It's called the NEAR Act for short.

>>Does he do anything now, though, that surprises you, or are there expectations that he always meets that you have of Tony?

>>I don't know that I'm ever surprised by what Tony does.

I just stay proud, right?

It's just this constant state of being proud of my brother for all the things that he does and the ways that he continues to be himself no matter what.

Like his name, like as you said, with Councilman McDuffie is like this larger than life thing, right?

Like his name precedes him, and even with that, there's still this like humble confidence and adamant, relentless desire to still fight, and I think that that's beautiful because some people get worn out from the type of fighting that Tony has done.

They get tired of it.

It is a thankless job, so to speak, you know, that you don't get paid for, and he shows up to work every day.

>>Your mission really is dealing with those who have been incarcerated, right?

And specifically to when they come out.

Talk a little bit about that, and I'm gonna assume your assessment is often, it's not looked at through that prism, right?

The collateral >>Correct.

>>effect of those incarcerations, and so how that drives you and what you want people to understand.

>>Understanding, right?

The sort of the, quote unquote, "natural" order of things, if you will, the black man has been impacted by mass incarceration on a level that's not even comparable, particularly here in the District of Columbia, right?

There's no statistical group that you can even compare, right?

And when you look at the implication of that, not only on that man but of everybody that's connected to him, right?

His family, his community.

>>He's been almost like a institution here, especially with young people for what he has done for these young men in this town.

I remember when he graduated from Gonzaga, and a mother brought all three of her sons to that graduation because she wanted to thank Tony for what she, well, for what he had done for her children, for her sons.

Tony's been around a long time in this city, doing things like project empowerment.

He won an award from "The Steve Harvey Show" for what he did for the community from people from New York, DC, and all over the country, and Tony won that award.

We oughta be so happy in a community where he has changed so many young men's lives, and that's what's important to me, black males, because this is the community we're losing here, and we need young men that they can talk to and have some type of >>Relationship.

>>relationship.

He speaks a language to them that they get it, even the kids in schools.

When he goes to schools, all the teachers and administrators, they always say, "Mr. Lewis, they listen to you.

When you come, they listen," and we need more of that.

We need people who's been in their places because when he talks, he's talking to them, he's talking their home lives because it says to them, "For what household I came out of, I don't care how bad it is, I can make a change."

Yes you can because you see the change right before you.

>>Being a youth that had challenges, I understood nothing could just help that kid, right?

You could be the best program, best coach, best whatever.

That kid has to go home, right?

So the long-term success, right?

You gonna have stars.

Every, you know, is a unique person, right?

In every, you know, whatever, every 1,000 people, there's one person that's just gonna defy the odds if we looked at it like that, but the reality of it is the best chance that we have at helping children is to help the adults around them, right?

I saw it to be fundamental with that men and women that's been touched by the criminal justice system, when they return, that they have an opportunity to get it right, right?

They have an opportunity to do it the way that, most times, they would have wanted to do it prior to the decisions that they made, and also like, this is America, right?

We have to be honest.

It's not all about choice, right?

Some people come from places where it is about good and bad.

I come from place where it's about the choices are bad and worse, okay?

So the expectation of what happens to somebody growing up in a community like mine without stability, without guidance, without their dads and their uncles and their big brothers to be able to model something, and you want me to look at Michael Jordan or Kobe or, you know, Jay-Z or whomever, but I can't dunk and I can't rap.

So now what?

And this is what we give black children, right?

Because the examples of other, it's not there, you know, that a lot of the examples based on systemic barriers and systemic racism and lack of access and lack of exposure leads a lot of us down a path that, really, we make a mistake.

And once we make that mistake, even when we pay that debt, society says, "You gotta pay.

You're limited for the rest of your life."

So my work and my personal professional experience has led me to say, "This is where sort of the rubber meets the road, and this is what we have to address," right?

'Cause I personally believe if we can create a ecosystem that targets re-entry, it will lead to no entry, if that makes sense, but it's gonna be impossible, right?

To change sort of this, this cycle without, you know, giving people the ability to, you know, start again, start anew, to foster a culture of redemption so that people in their household can model what they supposed to be.

The only culture where we tell, we want our kids to look outside of their house to find, you know, positive role models or people that they should look up to, and also, you know, the other side of that I know I'm a result of the dreams of so many women that may not have made the best decisions, but I'm who I am because of them, right?

I didn't fall out of a tree, and sometimes people see if there's a situation where there's negativity going on, people see that it's only being negative.

Like there's no positive, right?

I'm from a village of people that based on, you know, their circumstances, the cards that they were dealt, if you will, made bad choices, but they gave me so much good affirmations, information, and guidance, and that's why I'm here.

>>I've seen where you've been quoted as saying that you could not be doing what you're doing or be the person that you are if it wasn't for your father.

Expound on that.

>>Yeah, right?

So like I guess anybody wouldn't be here without their dad, right?

But his deposits into me, you know, obviously prior to him going to prison but mainly from prison, right?

For 34 years, he's been in prison, right?

Of my life.

His tutelage, his commands at some point early in my life about to stay away from certain things, but the deeper levels also, it's like, he's sort of my advisor.

He has been in terms of like, "Hey Pop, what do you think about this?

I'm trying to do this.

Do you think I should make this move?"

Connecting me with individuals that, you know, been incarcerated with him, you know, to help support their families.

>>How has Tony's work that he's been doing in the community, how would you say that's impacted you, even from afar?

>>Two things just happened right there.

It kind of broke up a little bit, so I didn't get it all.

Then the two beeps come in.

So we only got a minute before the phone shuts off, but could you say that again >>Yeah, I'll say it- >>real quickly?

>>I'll say it real quick.

How has Tony's work that he's done in the community, how has that impacted you, impacted your life?

>>Oh, it has impacted me tremendously in a positive way.

What he does in the community, how he helps people.

I run through these guys that's been in his programs.

They've been incarcerated, been back out.

They come to me numerous times, "Oh, Mr. Lewis, your son has helped me get employment.

"Your son, I read his book.

"He inspires me so much.

"I just love your son, man.

"I'm glad to meet you, man."

You know what I'm saying?

You know, just hearing that every so often really somewhat on everyday basis, different guys, it just, I can't do this time without my son.

It just means it's so tremendous what he does out in the community and how it affects- (phone beeps) >>I think we got that big chunk of it.

I think we got- >>I wanted to catch him saying goodbye.

>>I thought, yeah.

>>Well, two things he never did.

One, he never made his lifestyle proud, like what he did, he never talked about it as if it was a cool thing to do.

Right?

And the other thing is, he always talked about prison as a place that, it wasn't a place, he talked about it in the sense of like, it wasn't a place for him, and it definitely was not a place for me to ever come, right?

That it was the worst place in the world.

Not even from a standpoint of like a scared straight kind of thing that to be dehumanized daily, but to also be in the presence of people that are dehumanized and what that causes in them.

To see that, right?

What that does to people.

That that was a place that he would never want me to go.

And it was nothing glamorous about it.

It was nothing honorable about it, you know?

And we come from a place where everybody go to jail, right?

And people had their war stories and people come home and they kind of wear it as a badge of honor, but not him.

Not him, you know what I mean?

And so that helped me, but it also inspired me to want to change things about not only what happens to people when they go to prison, but also open up doors with people when when they return.

>>Tell me about Tony the father and Tony the husband.

>>Yes, it's a beautiful family.

He, again, just continues to show up for them.

Show them the life that they have, what they deserve, how to be positive people, reminds them how beautiful they are, does their homework with them.

Like, he just does it all, and they are very lucky.

And hopefully when they grow up, they look for somebody who is amazing for their children as well.

>>Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy.

Everything daddy, daddy, daddy.

They love him so much, and I can see why because I wish every black child in America could have a father like Tony Lewis as he is to his children and to everybody else's children.

>>What has family life, your nuclear family, right?

What has that meant to you?

>>They mean everything to me, man.

They've given me, like my, I was already doing the work, right?

When I met my wife 12 years ago.

Going on 12 years ago.

I met her doing the work.

Then we had Izzy probably like two years later, my oldest.

And like when she came into the world, it's like, I just, it was like, I gotta make the world, you know, I've been doing some stuff, but I gotta like, I gotta change the world for her, right?

And then Sophie came too.

It's like, so every day, they were like my guiding principles.

Like, I gotta change the world.

I gotta make a world a better place for them, right?

This gonna be a world that they're gonna grow up in, one day have families of their own and so on and so forth.

It just made the work even mean even more to me.

It also made me sort of like, because they do, they share me with the world.

They share me with the community, right?

But I had to also create more boundaries 'cause I owe that to them, right?

That's important to me.

>>And so now here you are married to him, but you're married to a guy who's also married to the community.

>>Absolutely.

>>So you have to share him.

>>And I know this.

I don't know how he stays sane because he just gives 100% of himself to everybody.

And I don't know how he does it.

It's something that, when I met him, I knew it was something I would have to take on, but how could I say no to that?

It's a beautiful thing that he's trying to support and continue to do for himself.

It's who he is.

It's who I met.

It's not just what he does by himself, it's something that we share within our family.

>>And God bless the dead, Chris Berry and obviously Marion Barry.

I remember being at Mary Berry's funeral and Chris was doing part of the eulogy.

And he said that, you know, "I shared my dad with the city."

The convention center went crazy.

But I felt the pain in that.

'Cause it's almost like he was saying, y'all had him, I didn't.

My babies won't say that.

They can say that we shared him, but they'll get most of me.

In their arrival, you know, I committed to that, you know?

And I stand on that because I can't lose my family trying to save everybody else's family.

And I'm hyper aware, hypersensitive to that.

But with that being said, they also give me the purpose and the motivation, like when I'm tired, when I'm overwhelmed, 'cause I do get overwhelmed, to keep going though.

Because helping my community is also helping them.

>>Lot has happened in your family on Hanover Place, right?

In some ways, some have gone one direction, some have gone the other direction.

What does Hanover Place sort of mean in your life?

>>It's home in every sense of the word.

Both of my parents were raised on this block.

Everything I know, everything I love, everything, every dream I've had, every tragedy I've experienced happened here.

It's my base.

It's where I draw strength.

It inspires me.

It encourages me.

And what's very interesting about Hanover now, Hanover represents Washington, DC.

It's everything that happens in DC, good, bad, or indifferent, it happens here, and I'm centered in that.

And I really see that as my role in this city to be sort of a bridge between groups that appear to be different, right?

That people can look at and say, well, I got something in common with him.

>>Does it add a certain sense of import that Tony being a young black man in the District of Columbia in the work that he's doing, does that have sort of even a stronger resonance based on some of the perception society may have of black men giving back to the community doing what Tony is doing?

>>In some ways, it's almost unfair to heap so much on the shoulders of people like Tony Lewis Jr.

But I think, you know, people like Tony Lewis Jr. who grew up in the District of Columbia during some of the toughest times in our city's history, dealing with the crack epidemic, dealing with the levels of gun violence when our city was known as the murder capital of the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, we're built for it.

He's built for it.

And it resonates with me as a fellow native Washingtonian because in so many ways, the District of Columbia can be a transient place.

People come here to go to one of our fine institutions of higher learning.

Howard University, Georgetown University, University of District of Columbia, and they leave.

For Tony to reach the level of success that he has, but never forget where he came from, to still live on Hanover Place, which was notorious when we were growing up, I think it's extraordinarily important.

And he never fails to recognize the significance of being in a position that he's in as a DC native and making the contributions to really shape his city.

>>My impact has went past Washington in many regards.

YA lot of people ask me, why you ain't move?

You still living?

Like, yeah.

'Cause, you know, why leave?

Why?

I'm not running from anything.

I actually feel safer here than anywhere.

And I could be delusional, right?

I could be naive, but I feel safer here no matter what, right?

And it has a lot of changes, right?

There's still some remnants of the Hanover I grew up on, but it ain't quite Mayberry yet, but it's a place where I feel like I'm foundational, and I'm raising my children here, my wife and I, and I'm proud of that, you know what I mean?

Will I move one day?

I don't know.

Possibly.

They say they want a yard, so.

But if I do move, it will be on my terms.

I wouldn't be 'cause I'm running from anything.

And I wanna show young people too all around this country that you can become something great where you from.

You ain't gotta always leave.

It's sort of a narrative that you gotta leave all the time.

Everybody's situation different.

But for me, young people can say he did everything he did from right there.

You know what I mean?

I think that's why I've been able to have an impact 'cause people watch me.

I ain't been nowhere, I've been right here.

You've seen it all.

You've seen me.

You've seen me go to UDC.

You've seen me be a role leader, you've seen me work at Project Empowerment, you've see me become a activist, you've seen me launch my book from here.

You know, you've seen me DC Natives Day influence policy and legislation all from right here.

But right here has helped me to do that.

>>What are your dreams for Tony moving forward?

>>I want him to be here forever.

And he's a special person, and sometimes it's okay to be selfish.

It's okay to do good things for yourself and all the things that you want to do versus all the things that you feel like you need to do.

I want him to have time with his father here outside of jail.

I think he lost so much of his childhood when his father went away, when his mother became sick.

And I just want him to be able to enjoy those times here with our children as well.

And I want him to be able to follow the rest of his dreams.

He's an amazing author.

He's an amazing activist.

He just has a way of connecting with people that he meets instantly.

And he's so smart, and he's so well spoken, and he just has this thing that a lot of people don't have, and I want him to continue to use that.

I know it's his passion, and I want him to be able to do that effortlessly.

>>Something that I always think about when I think about Tony is just how grateful I am that he's always still available in multiple capacities, right?

Like, I can call Tony and we can talk about our children, we can talk about our marriages, we can talk about community work.

Like, our conversation goes in so many different level, so many different ways.

It is never a short conversation, right?

Never.

Tony and I can never get on the phone, never link up, and it's like a quick five, even though we say it.

We'll start off saying like, sis, bro, I'm gonna talk five, gimme five minutes.

45 minutes later, and now we're thinking about some policy that needs to be enacted and who we need to get on the phone and what we need to fight for and how we gonna bring his dad home, and you know, and my brothers, and all the things that that intertwine our lives, they always seem to come up for us.

And I'm just, I'm grateful for that because we don't always have friends that we can fight with and laugh with and celebrate in the ways that we get to do between Tony and I.

And so I'm just proud of him.

I'm happy for him.

You know, I was one of the first people to read "Slugg," you know, before it was printed.

I read the manuscript for it, and now when I see it on shelves and in college classrooms and all across social media, I am just not surprised.

Still not surprised, but I am just amazed and honored to be able to call him my brother.

Yeah.

>>But if you would speak to Tony's legacy, what would you say it is and will be based on what he's already done in the community and serving and volunteering and mentoring?

>>I think, as a former educator, I see Tony as a teacher, and I think his legacy is going to be around all the things that he's taught us.

Like the ways that he's taught us to be activists, even when you simply just feel like a citizen, right?

Sometimes regular, quote unquote regular people don't feel like they have enough power, and Tony has taught us to activate our power.

I think his legacy is definitely going to be around educating and showing up in what that looks like for me and my kids and his kids and our grandkids because he has started work that he won't be able to finish in his lifetime because it's just magnanimous work.

But his legacy will be the way that he shows us all how to continue on.

>>Your dad's legacy was sort of a giant.

What do you think will be the legacy for Tony Lewis Jr.?

And your dad may still have one to build, but where we are now, right?

>>No, sure, sure.

No, that's a great question.

I think my legacy, what I hope my legacy will be is that I inspire people to use their innate power to invoke change.

That I took activism out of the hands of the preacher or the politician, right?

And put it in the hands of the street.

I gave people access to service in a way that hadn't been done before.

I put the coat drive in the club.

I mobilized returning citizens and people that society deemed as being untouchable or people that you wanna stay away from and gave them the courage to know that they could change the same communities they once caused harm in.

I made giving a cool thing.

That's what I hope my legacy is when it's all said and done.

That you could come from whatever, right?

But also not that you was somebody that you can acknowledge the mishaps and mistakes that your family's made, but you also don't have to be ashamed.

And you can highlight the beauty and the good that those very people put into you.

That you could make your family proud.

>>My mother loved him so much.

Oh my gosh, she loved that boy so much.

I think some of her spirit is in him because, she, even at her age, she just, I don't know, he was just her world.

I guess maybe she figured she lost his mother in terms of the mental crisis, and mama took up that cross and she bore till the day she died.

>>Ultimately, my grandmother Jebella Hinton, that's my maternal grandmother, she raised me, right?

And you know, when she passed in 2015, she's told this to me.

I know she died proud of me, you know?

She told me I can go now, like I'm good now, you know?

And for me, that was like, well, I can go now too because I made her proud, you know?

But my mom, my dad, you know, did various situations, but I was brought up in love and those, you know?

My parents, I'm grateful for them.

In spite of, right?

I'm grateful for them, I'm so, so grateful for the foundation that they laid for me.

I tap into that every day, you know what I mean?

And I want other young people that may not come up in the most picture perfect situation to know that, you know, your parents sometimes, man, they do the best they could.

It's up to you now to do better.

>>This concludes the special hour long episode of the "Legacy Series: Living a Legacy."

Chronicling the lives of Tony Lewis Sr. and Tony Lewis Jr. We thank the Lewis family for allowing us to bring such a remarkably raw and revealing story to you.

As the Lewis family would say, one street, two directions.

Theirs is a story of triumph and redemption.

On behalf of the many lives that have now been impacted by their efforts, we salute them.

(triumphant music) (triumphant music continues) (triumphant music continues) (triumphant music continues) (triumphant music continues) >>This program was produced by WHUT, and made possible by contributions from viewers like you.

For more information on this program or any other program, please visit our website at whut.org.