OAKLAND — For a brief but glorious couple of years in the late 1980s, Darryl “Lil D” Reed thought he had it made. His uncle by marriage was Felix Mitchell, the legendary Oakland heroin kingpin whose 1986 funeral included several stretch limousines, a horse-drawn carriage and a crowd of thousands. Upon Mitchell’s death, Reed inherited the mantle of Oakland’s premier drug lord. With a crew to back him, Reed started selling crack. By the time he was 20, Mitchell’s diminutive nephew was a millionaire in his own right. And then one day, Reed got caught.
Now in the 23rd year of a 35-year federal prison sentence, Reed has spent more time behind bars than as a free man. But he wants to help right at least some of the wrongs he says he set in motion all those years ago.
On Thursday, Reed was the keynote speaker at an East Oakland union hall where civic groups and local residents gathered to support “Silence the Violence Day.” Reed spoke to a crowd of more than 100 students, activists and community members by telephone from Terminal Island Federal Prison in San Pedro, just outside Long Beach.
“I don’t want you guys to make the same mistakes I made when I was young,” he said, to raucous applause. Reed condemned the recent spate of shootings in Oakland. “You’re putting your lives on the line and other people’s lives on the line.”
The meeting was dubbed a “Youth Peace Summit,” and was sponsored by a collaboration among the Urban Peace Movement; KMEL 106.1 FM, a hip-hop radio station; and United Playaz, a San Francisco based gang-prevention group. Similar events took place in five other major American cities, including New York, Chicago and Detroit.
“This is an opportunity for me to talk to young people about what I did, and to take responsibility for my actions,” he said. “Hopefully, they’ll listen.”
Reed and his friends and supporters say they believe the culture of violence on Oakland’s streets today can be traced back directly to the crack epidemic.
“In 1988, at the height of the crack epidemic, no one could have predicted the impact on Oakland 23 years later,” said Nicole Lee, one of the events organizers and a friend of Reed’s. “But what we face today is the residual impact of crack on those urban communities; an entire generation was taken out because of this epidemic.”
During his reign in the late 1980s, Reed exerted a palpable and charismatic influence in Oakland. Ansar El Muhammed, a young hustler who grew up admiring Reed’s street smarts, recalls how the owners of Mr. Z’s clothing shop would close the store to the public whenever Reed and his crew showed up. But, like Reed, Muhammed got caught and sent to prison for three years. After he got out, he and Reed began to collaborate on projects to reach out to kids. In the intervening years, they both said, the violence in Oakland had gotten considerably worse.
“I (idolized) him when I was on the streets, but now I look up to him in the positive sense,” said Muhammed, who converted to Islam and whose name means “The Prophet Muhammad’s Helper.”
In May, with Muhammed’s help, Reed helped coordinate a musical collaboration among Oakland rappers E-40, 2 Short and Yuckmouth. The result was a song called “Oakland,” a well-produced denunciation of violence that garnered 3 million YouTube hits the day it was released. Reed and Muhammed have become close friends and plan on releasing a documentary about Reed’s life this fall.
“I think Darryl feels he has a responsibility for the youth today because he sold dope to their parents,” Muhammed said. “He really feels he has a lot to do with how things are today.”
To a certain extent, Reed’s message appears to also be about dismantling the Robin Hood-like status that generations of Oakland residents have conferred upon his uncle and mentor, Mitchell.
“If you’re from Oakland, you’ve got to know about Felix Mitchell,” said Rayvon Smith, an Urban Peace Movement volunteer. “But that’s the problem, people idolize him.”
Smith says that Reed’s message is about reminding people that while Mitchell gave back to the community, “he also polluted it.”
Reed’s son Lamar, a 22-year-old graduate of California Baptist University, said he was proud of his father.
“He has matured into a man in his thinking,” Lamar said. “This is very important to him.”
Contact Scott Johnson at 510-208-6429. Follow him at Twitter.com/scott_c_johnson and Twitter.com/oaklandeffect
