Interrupting Violence: One Man's Journey to Heal the Streets and Redeem Himself

by Cobe Williams, Josh Gryniewicz, Alex Kotlowitz producer of The Interrupt (Foreword by), Joakim Noah former professional baske (Foreword by)

Overview

Part memoir and part call to action, Interrupting Violence is a blueprint for cities across America looking for a new way to address community violence. Readers will be energized by the book Kirkus Reviews calls a "heartfelt, authentic guide for combatting community violence.”

For over a decade, Cobe Williams has been a violence interrupter, a highly trained conflict resolution expert working to stop the killing. Alongside thousands of workers across the country, many of whom he trained, Cobe intervenes in street conflicts before they result in murder. Interrupting Violence follows his evolution from gang leader to vanguard of a social justice movement. More than a memoir, Interrupting Violence spans three generations of trauma to portray a radically optimistic vision for addressing urban violence.

Born into the notorious Black Disciples, Cobe became a drug dealer, hustler, and shot-caller. His father, an influential gang member, was murdered before Cobe turned eleven. Five men, his father’s so-called friends, beat him to death in the lobby of a public housing project. Cobe spent years seeking answers about what happened that night.

As Cobe rose through the ranks of the Black Disciples—at one time commanding over one hundred men throughout the city while still in high school—a gang war turned his world upside down. Its escalation overshadowed his ascent. Stoked by police, who fanned the conflict’s flames, the war would engulf Cobe’s friends and family, nearly costing him his life. Ultimately, Cobe would end up behind bars for attempted murder, a crime he didn’t commit.

Interrupting Violence follows Cobe as he undertakes his redemption journey, offering new hope for the nation’s most violent communities. As the country wrestles with the inequities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic and the complex intersections of urban violence, racial injustice, police brutality, and poverty in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, this book provides an inspiring blueprint. Cobe’s story demonstrates how the country can resolve the issues plaguing our inner cities, taking readers into an often misunderstood and misrepresented aspect of the Black experience in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538166871
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/02/2024
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.35(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Cobe Williams is the Director of National Programs for Cure Violence Global (CVG), where he trained over five thousand workers in violence prevention. He appeared in the film The Interrupters and People, Vice, Ebony, and The New Yorker. He received a standing ovation at his TEDx event. He serves as a community ambassador for basketball star Joakim Noah's Foundation. He is a first-time author, with a BA from Northeastern Illinois University and is pursuing a masters in social work. He currently lives in Chicago.
Josh Gryniewicz is an author, storyteller, comic book writer, and health communicator. He was a contributing author to Beyond Suppression: Global Perspectives on Youth Violence and Crime & Society and a regular columnist with PopMatters. In 2018, he founded Odd Duck, a storytelling for social change communication consultancy, which has advised over fifty violence prevention programs throughout the country. He is the former communication director for Cure Violence. He currently lives in Chicago.

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from the Introduction

This book is my story. It is also the story of two families, interconnected, coping with the impact of trauma across generations and the racist history of Black Chicago. It is about surviving hardship and coming out stronger on the other side. It is about finding ways to resolve this pain transmitted, parent to child, to resolve the cycle of intergenerational trauma for a hopeful future.

This book is my story. It is also the story of a movement that has come of age. It is the story of community activists, often formerly incarcerated individuals, working to undo the harm they’ve done. It is the story of ragtag groups of organizers working out of community-based storefronts in ramshackle strip malls to keep tenuous peace on mean streets. Others like me who have left behind gang life to convene peace talks in church basements on borrowed time to save lives. This is the story of connecting those groups from the Bronx and Brooklyn to Cherry Hill, Baltimore, syncing Englewood, Chicago, and Inglewood, California, with movements in Minneapolis and St. Louis, Oakland, and Los Angeles to form a cohesive revolution in violence prevention. A movement that went from unlit, hardscrabble alleyways all the way to the White House.

This book is my story. It is also a guide for what cities need to know to set up a community violence intervention in their community. It is about the nuts-and-bolts logistics of creating a program. The challenges faced from laying the groundwork to launching the site. It is my story, but it is also a call to action for leaders looking for a new way forward in public health for some of the nation’s most violence-impacted communities.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Alex Kotlowitz

Foreword by Joakim Noah

Introduction

PART I: BORN INTO IT

1 One Chicago Summer

2 Cadillac Goalposts

3 Navigating Borderlands

4 Ain’t Too Dumb

5 The Most Dangerous Gas Station in America

6 A Chicago Winter

7 Strategies for Resolving Conflict

8 After My Father’s Murder

9 On the Trail of Big Folks

10 The Professional Gangster

PART II ALL OUT WAR

11 The Stickup Man

12 At My Front Door

13 How This Could’ve Played Out

14 Escalations

15 How This Could’ve Played Out, Part II

16 A Shoot-Out and a Frame-Up

PART III: PATH TO PEACEKEEPING

17 History Repeating Itself

18 Wild Wild

19 Chicago’s Hidden History

20 Revenge Is Hardwired

21 The Start of Something

22 Healing Wounds

23 A New Life

PART IV LOOKING UPSTREAM

24 Game Changer

25 The National Program

26 One City, One Game

27 The New York City Crisis Management System

28 Real Chicago

29 Group Mediations

30 Righting the Upside-Down World

Epilogue: Anywhere, USA: The Future

Notes

Bibliography

About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

From the Foreword: I don’t want to give away Cobe’s story, but suffice it to say I marvel at his journey, and revel in his companionship. His personal journey is one of heartbreak and loss, but also one of an abundance of joy and redemption. I hope in these pages you, like I, will come to treasure his company, that you will come to understand the true capacity of the human heart, that you will get at least a taste of what it means to have Cobe by your side.

Alex Kotlowitz

From the Foreword: As a Violence Interrupter, sought-after national expert, speaker, trainer, and leader, he has more insight into the subject than most thinkers. … Cobe Williams is the real deal. … He lived the life, survived these events, transformed himself, and returned to the community to help heal it. He was part of the problem, and now he is part of the solution.

Joakim Noah

Cobe's story is a testament to the belief that nobody is ever lost. Everyone can have a second chance. Everyone can turn their life around and do something positive. Cobe was a product of his environment. Now, he is making things happen all over the country—all over the world. He has made a real impact.

Matt Forte

Now, even more necessary, to hear the voices directly from the Street. .. where everywhere, the killing is happening.

Leigh B. Bienen

Cobe's journey unfolds as a compelling narrative of challenges and aspirations, a testament to enduring perseverance and transformative triumph. This book is a beacon for those who have navigated the rough terrains of life, seeking a path to brighter horizons. I advocate for its reading, especially among the youth emerging from comparable circumstances. They will find a mirror in Cobe's battles, drawing inspiration to reach the heights of their own potential.

Tony Allen

2024-05-04
A stirring account from the front lines of urban violence prevention.

Writing with Gryniewicz, Williams alternates between frank discussions of the challenges faced by anti-violence “interrupters” performing conflict mediation in Chicago’s resource-poor Black neighborhoods and a memoir about his own improbable transformation from a second-generation member of the Black Disciples. Alongside other aspects of restorative justice, the movement gained visibility following the acclaimed 2011 documentary The Interrupters, in which Williams appeared. In the foreword, director Alex Kotlowitz writes, “It’s formally known as community violence intervention, but that doesn’t begin to capture the scope of what Cobe and others do as they walk their communities with an open heart and a quiet fury stemming from their belief that things need not be this way.” Williams later adds, “Community violence intervention is a growing public safety movement that stops shootings and killings on the front end. It uses formerly incarcerated gang members as ‘credible messengers’ to interrupt violence.” The narrative presents a vivid family history, including intense vignettes like his own father’s murder following success as a drug dealer, alongside an ongoing account of the complex networking involved in the conflict resolution efforts of organizations like CeaseFire (since renamed Cure Violence), which provide “a model for this approach borrowed from the discipline of public health rather than criminology.” Indeed, during the pandemic, writes the author, “we moved from solely focusing on violence prevention to serving as community health workers.” Following the police murder of George Floyd and subsequent uprisings, “the community violence intervention model, which I had been promoting for over a decade, reached new prominence.” The complex narrative’s earnestness can drag at points, but Williams is deeply perceptive about brutal urban realities, and he dismantles assumptions rooted in implicit bias with academic rigor and effective storytelling.

A heartfelt, authentic guide for combatting community violence.

Kirkus Reviews