Transcript
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Hey, welcome back to another episode of let's Just Talk About it podcast.
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I'm your host, chuck, and if you're here for the first time, this platform was created to give genuine people just like you an opportunity to share a portion of your life's journey.
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So, with that being said, today I have Michael Marshall on with me today, sharing a part of his journey growing up in the city of Portsmouth, virginia, and also his passion as an advocate to help men and women with their reentry from prison back into society.
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So, hey, you don't want to miss this amazing conversation today.
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As a matter of fact, do me a favor Go and grab your husband, your wife, your children, or even call a friend and gather around to listen to my conversation with Michael on let's Just Talk About it podcast.
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Hey, let's jump right in.
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Welcome back to another episode of let's Just Talk About it podcast Today.
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I have Mike Marshall on with me today.
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How's it going, mike?
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Hey, doing great, chuck.
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Thank you for asking, brother.
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Yes, sir man, good to have you on.
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I'm glad to be here, mike.
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I love to jump right into my interviews to have those genuine conversations with genuine people just like yourself, you know, just to share a portion of your life's journey.
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So the first question I want to start off with is where are you from?
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Where did you grow up at?
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Well, originally, when I was younger, my mom was actually living in public housing.
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We were in Ida Barbar Public Housing for the earlier part of my years and then, from there, when my mom passed away, we went to live with my grandmother in Cavalier Manor.
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Wow, so your mom passed away at an early age.
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Right, yeah, so I believe I was nine years old when my mom passed away from breast cancer.
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She was 35 years old.
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Did that impact you?
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You know, like being a young guy growing up in Outer Barber, Did that impact you a lot?
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Yeah, so you, you know here we go.
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So when you think about someone, nine years old, um, growing up without a mother, you know we didn't know about being traumatized at that point, we didn't know about the pain and suffering that comes with.
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You know the emotional scars that you know one endure.
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From luc, you know life continued to go on and so, as kids, you continue to do what kids do, you play, you enjoy, you know whatever life is and but as you get older, you know you realize that some of the behavior that you probably have developed has been a result of having that hole, that missing piece of your life.
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And yeah, yeah, and so a great deal of my life, um, never really knew why.
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You know, um, I just couldn't, you know, let that part of me go, let that part of life go, and and so it always came back for me, always, and so, um, yeah, man, that was, that was a tough blow at nine years old, very tough, wow, you the oldest.
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No, so I, so I'm number five of seven.
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Yeah, so I had a total of seven siblings.
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I've lost several siblings along the way.
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I lost one of my sisters early on in life, when I was living, actually, because I was in New York After my mom passed.
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I went to New York for a short period of time to live with some family and when I was in New York my sister was there also with me one of my sisters and she had met this older guy and ended up getting in a relationship and she was back and forth from New York back to Virginia.
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And we get that phone call one day, man, that they had found my sister in the house and she had expired, had passed away from, looks like somebody had poisoned her.
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But we never really found out.
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And you know again, you know the trauma, the grief, the hurt, the pain, yeah, yeah, it was deep, right, yeah.
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And so then you know, I had lost another sister to breast cancer at the age of 33, I want to say I, I believe 33 or 34.
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I lost my baby sister to breast cancer.
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So she would go, she would, you know, I mean dying from the same sickness that my mom had.
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But you know, man, these things, man, life still go on yeah and you still process it the best way you can, but they affect you in so many areas of your life.
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So I always continue to be affected, because I remember a lot of times you don't want to go to counseling because we've been taught in the black community that it's taboo for to talk to someone about you know, your loss or your grief, and so what happens in the house stays in the house.
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That's what your parents told you when I was growing up.
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Don't you tell nobody?
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what's going on in?
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this house.
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Right, that's right.
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Yeah, and so, man, for a long time I couldn't talk about the thing that I had to do.
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It was only when I became an adult man that, you know, I began to really kind of seek out because I couldn't understand why I wasn't functioning.
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You know the way, in terms of in relationships, man and I didn't make the connection, and then one of the therapists had told me and this is why I'm an advocate, man for nail, nail.
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It used to be a time where you know, I'm not talking about it, I feel like that.
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You know, I'm the tough guy.
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I got my chest poked out and I said you know what?
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I got this, that's what I used to say.
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I got this came at me and, man, but at some point, yeah, yeah, so at what point, man, do you, you can't suck it up forever.
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And I kept trying to suck it up, suck it up, suck it up, but at some point, man, you, you explode because you can't suck it up anymore.
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And that's what happened in life, man, you know, because everything I was sucking up, man, it was going nowhere, but inside of me, and, and that can cause a person to at some point you, it's got to go, so you end up exploding, right.
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So and so, man, yeah, and so today, you know, I've been real.
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I'm very actively, um, supportive of people, man, who may not want to go to therapy and counseling, because I know that the brothers, in particular afric-American men, you know we're less likely to go to get treatment because we've been told again that you know you got it and uh, but what do you do, though?
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What do you really really do?
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And that's why you're seeing right now, man, a lot of people are emotional, bankrupt, emotional, mentally, psychologically scarred man, because they don't know how to deal with the trauma and the pain, and so hurt people, hurt other people.
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And so, you know, yeah, and and that's what we're seeing now, a lot of hurt people are running around hurting other people because they don't know what to do with all of those emotional things that they, that they, have endured through life, man, and so, uh, so, yeah, so I, I strongly, again, I strongly, man, recommend, you know someone, man, that's been having these type of things, that has challenged them, to seek out some help.
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Man, you know, put aside, man, that ego man.
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You know we become egotistical maniacs, and so we don't want, you know, no one to know that we're hurting deep inside right and but you know it's better man to get that out you than to keep it in you.
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Because I right and but you know it's better man to get that out you than to keep it in you, because I can tell you one thing for sure, man, it's definitely gonna stagnate you in a lot of ways.
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But, yeah, chuck, so I you know.
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So, man, um, but losing loved ones like that man at an early age, man, it left a hole in my heart, man, but now and I know how to work through those things, even with the recent loss of my brother, pain is pain, you know, hurt is hurt, but because I learned how to work through it and seek out the type of resources you know what I mean I really feel that can be beneficial to me.
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I think the healing process has been a little better for me this time than it's ever been before.
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And so you know that death there with my brother man, you know me and my brother man, we're very close.
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Wow, you know I got four brothers, man, everybody that knows us know we're very close.
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So but the loss of him, man, really thankful.
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Yes, it's deep man.
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You never know what people go through, man, you never know what they've come through to be the way they are today.
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Exactly, yes, you're exactly right.
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If we hold that emotion on the inside, eventually it's going to come out in the wrong way.
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Yes, yeah.
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So, as you you know, you transitioned from New York City back to Cavalier Manor.
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How was that for you from that point on growing up?
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Yeah, so right.
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So, look, that's an interesting question.
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I'm glad you asked that because when I came back from from new york I'm born and raised from, you know, from portsmouth.
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Now when I went to new york, I was, it was at an early age and so I had cousins, man, you know, it was like on steroids to cry in there.
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Compared to you know, compared to you know, you know, they used to call me country man because you know, you're coming from the south and you know, and they get a chuckle out.
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You know, I mean that accent there and so.
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But, man, I'm being in a big city, man, you know, at 12 years old, learning your way, trying to figure things out, because my father was, you know, was there but and I had an uncle that was there, but my grandmother on my dad's side supposedly had been, you know, providing, and I remember one day, man, when she told me that you know providing.
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And I remember one day, man, when she told me that, you know, she just didn't have all the resources that she needed to take care of me and one of my sisters that was there in New York.
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She used to tell my grandmother back here in Virginia.
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She said y'all need to get Mike out of New York because he's running wild.
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I didn't even realize at 12 or 13 how wild that I was running man, because I wasn't even in my right grade, and that's another thing, man.
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You know, I had to come back to Virginia.
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When I got back to Virginia, my grandmother had to get me in my right grade, because my grandmother in New York she kind of dropped that ball and I wasn't even in school for a whole year, wow, and so that that pushed me behind for a whole year, and so eventually, when I got back in Virginia system though, I eventually caught back up and I don't think I really truly caught back up, but I think that I was yeah, yeah.
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So I don't think I truly caught up in terms of my age and stuff, but I caught up in terms of academic Right, and so yeah.
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But when I came back trying to readjust, I noticed that I was a little more advanced for a 12 or 13.
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I can't remember that, probably 12 or 13.
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Right, but I was so advanced in my behavior man was just had adjusted to city life, and so even when yeah, so even when I came back here in Virginia, man, I still had another type of mentality at that early age.
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Wow, because I had a young cousin that they taught me all the bad things, man, you know, they was hustling a little weed and you know, and this is at early ages, right, and so I got it.
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Yeah, and so I get exposed to some things that I shouldn't have got exposed, that my grandparents here back in Virginia probably did not even have a clue.
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But that was city life, man, it was just a fast pace and um and so.
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But eventually I got back in and in school and, you know, started playing sports.
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Man, I was, you know, I'm pretty good.
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I played football, um, at Waters, w Waters, I don't know if you remember Waters, yeah, I remember, you know.
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Yeah so.
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I, yeah, I played for Mounted, but I was at Waterloo though, okay.
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But you know, in the eighth grade you can play JV, jv, that's right, so I played JV, right, yeah, so I played JV.
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Yeah, so back during that time.
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So I played JV football and I was probably one of the few that was on the JV basketball in the eighth and ninth grade.
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So I was real active in sports.
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Yeah, all around sports man.
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Yeah, yeah, man, I was real active Football was really true to my sport.
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I played tailback for two years, man, up until you know school.
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Just, you know, I guess, life and trauma, crisis, and the trauma again, man, just, I never shook it, man, and I remember, man, remember, man, I just stopped going man around about the 10th grade, you know, I said, well, you know, um, I'm not going no more man.
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And and I pretty much, man, made that decision on my own.
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And when I did, my grandfather never forget my grandfather's, you know was a type of guy he was, you know, very stern, very strict man.
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You know, he was a hard working guy, you know military, you know, had done security, he was, you know, but he was a hard-working guy.
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You know military, you know, had done security, he was, you know, but he was a hard-working man.
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He said, either work you know, work school, or military, or you know, you ain't gonna stay in my house.
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And I remember, man, I was doing all the bad stuff and I got caught, man, and I was a man, I was, I was really a bad guy, man at an early age, gotcha and unfortunately, because of the exposure, man, mm-hmm and so, but that led me, man, to my grandfather putting me out, and that's, you know, because of you know.
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I mean, I had a gun in his house and you know all the bad things, man, that you don't think about when you're young, you just think that it's normal.
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Okay, we got a little gun and you know, we don't you know, but it wasn't like that we were running around hurting people, it was just the thought of it that we had.
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It wasn't like that, right, yeah, because it wasn't like on the level of violence what we see today.
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But as young guys, we, you know, just was exploring down those kind of avenues.
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That wasn't safe for us.
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But I can't even tell you right now how I even got the weapon, but but I was young, you know.
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Yeah, I got you right.
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I got you, yeah, wow.
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So moving on, man, we met on saint brides correctional.
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You know what I'm saying?
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that was my first time meeting mike marshall and right, yeah going back when I, when I met you, right, you was all about getting out or helping the guys in there to get their lives back on track.
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That's all I saw Mike Marshall doing was a man that was determined when he got out, it was no looking back.
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And now you're doing the same thing, helping guys who come and women, I believe who come out to help them to stay out.
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Correct, correct, wow, correct, correct, wow.
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And you have a have a documentary man that you executive produced called the Reentry Advocates of Virginia Documentary man.
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Talk about that.
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So before I get there, so let me go back a little bit.
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All right, let's go back.
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So yeah, so let me let me rewind, Like so, when I was in the system, I never really accepted that was going to be my life or that's who I was.
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That's what I'd done, but that wasn't who I was.
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Wow.
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Does that make?
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sense, okay, that's what I'd done, I'd done a crime that ended me there, but that wasn't who I was.
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Because, if you think back, man, a lot of us came up, you know, in well-to-do families, two-parent homes, I mean, excuse me, two-parent families, you know, sort of middle class, you know, but we still made some bad decisions.
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It wasn't because we wasn't raised properly, because I got a good upbringing, although you hear my earlier journey about me, my journey of a winding road going down these different paths.
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That happened because of Mike's choice.
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Journey about me, my journey of a winding road going down these different paths, that happened because of mike's choice, not because that I was right.
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I didn't, I didn't have to go down there, right?
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Yeah?
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so you can, so we can relate right.
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So before there even was, you know I mean a, a having a little firearm or having some weed, or you know I mean doing something that was illegal.
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There was a time where mike wasn't exposed to any of that and that he was raised, going to church, um, doing all the positive, productive things, had a little job and those sort of things.
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But I got off track.
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I got off track because I made a decision.
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I made the poor decision, poor choice that I wanted.
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Right, exactly, man.
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And so, even if I fail when I fast track this story to respond to what you were saying, I end up inside of a prison at an early age in which you didn't know I had been to prison before.
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Unfortunately I had been.
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I got charged at 17 years old, me and some more guys from around Cabellet Mountain.
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We got charged with, you know, it's kind of petty, petty robbery charge.
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You know, uh, nobody was hurt, anything like that.
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It was petty, but it still was a was a charge.
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Right, it's still valid, um, and so I didn't learn anything when I was incarcerated for that short three years that I went in at an early age and so I lived the same lifestyle that I knew I was planning on living when I got out and I did what I was is I positioned myself around even more sophisticated criminals, you know, and trying to plot and scheme on how we were going to get.
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You know all these ideas to get back in the drug game and make lots of money, that type of thing because I was not ready for change.
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Change is something that comes from winning.
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You know what I and so when I met you by that time I want to say I was in my late 20s, wow.
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And so everything had evolved.
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So now, as I played the tape all the way through right which that's what I was doing I had played the tape all the way through, mike.
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What are you gonna do?
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This is your second time.
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You're in late 20s.
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You got two children.
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Um, what are you going to do?
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This is your second time You're in late twenties.
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You got two children.
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What are you going to do when you get out?
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Because I will never forget, a guy told me.
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He said man, if you go back out there with the same thing, he said, if we go back out there like that, he said, man, it may be a luxury for us to make it back because they die.
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And I said, whoa, it may be a luxury to come back.
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He said, yeah, dying.
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And I said, whoa, it may be a luxury to come back.
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He said, yeah, because they're dying out there.
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And that stuck with me and I remember man from the rest of my being and doing and serving my sins.
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I said to myself.
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I said, man, I'm going to find a way to come up with a strategic plan that's going to line me up for success.
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But I got to start living the way that I want to live out there.
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I started not to accept the prison, man, you know, I used to get up, man, and when y'all used to see me moving about my mind, man was focused.
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I was focused, and if a man's mind don't change, progress is impossible.
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Wow.
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And so when my mindset changed, everything started changing around me.
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I prayed, I said God, you know, god, just show me the way I put down having whatever kind of reputation you think that you had, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually.
00:17:48.883 --> 00:18:02.336
I put all that in the trash, can, man?
00:18:02.336 --> 00:18:11.500
Because I knew that if I didn't change before I got out, it was impossible for me to now get to that time and be able to open these gates, these doors.
00:18:11.500 --> 00:18:14.778
And I'm going back out there and I had not put in no work.
00:18:14.778 --> 00:18:17.560
You got to put in work, man, and I put in a lot of work.
00:18:17.560 --> 00:18:28.730
Man, right, like, and I put in a lot of work man, yeah, you have, Like you said, chuck, I put in a lot of work with working with people, that I thought that would better position me to be successful and to do the thing that I enjoy doing, which was giving back.
00:18:28.730 --> 00:18:32.813
I found my passion, which ultimately, you find your purpose.
00:18:32.813 --> 00:18:34.741
My passion was helping other people.
00:18:35.455 --> 00:18:36.199
Yeah, that's for sure.
00:18:37.142 --> 00:18:37.343
Right.
00:18:37.343 --> 00:18:38.184
And so that right.
00:18:38.184 --> 00:18:44.781
And so when I was released, the first first thing I then I ended up taking the same trade I had.
00:18:44.781 --> 00:18:48.518
I was working in norfolk state in food service, because that's what I done when I was inside, you know, I mean I.
00:18:48.518 --> 00:18:50.462
And then I started working in a library.
00:18:50.462 --> 00:18:56.467
So when I went, when I worked in a library, inside institution, I learned the whole dewey decimal system I could.
00:18:56.467 --> 00:19:06.125
I used to get quoted the back of my head, right I, you know, because I became obsessed with books, right, right and reading, and that's what propelled me.
00:19:06.125 --> 00:19:11.748
You know, when I came home and you know, I got a job in Norfolk State, they told me they had never hired, nobody.
00:19:11.835 --> 00:19:14.884
But this is how critical it is, you never know who's watching you.
00:19:14.884 --> 00:19:24.060
The same man that I was working for as an aide, mr Owens, may he rest in peace he was the first person that went and advocated for me.
00:19:24.060 --> 00:19:28.213
And so when you invest in, you know how you got investments.
00:19:28.213 --> 00:19:39.557
People invest in houses, they invest in the stock market, they invest in you know what I mean other things in life but when you invest in a human being, man, and you invest in a human infrastructure, you're talking about changing lives.
00:19:39.557 --> 00:19:49.941
That man changed my life when he invested in me, and so you know what I reciprocated, that what he done for me is what God has allowed me to do for other people.
00:19:49.941 --> 00:19:52.346
I invest in the human infrastructure of people.
00:19:52.414 --> 00:20:03.661
I believe that there's hope after prison, there's hope after jail, you know, people don't have to continue to go back on that perpetual cycle, and so I've learned that it has to be a mind changing experience.
00:20:03.661 --> 00:20:09.846
So people that I've engaged in those type of conversations now and not just that man I give them the blueprint that I had.
00:20:09.846 --> 00:20:11.259
I got the blueprint to stay out.
00:20:11.259 --> 00:20:24.105
I've been off for 20 years now, but that was a systematic approach and process that kept me where I'm at today, and I credit God man, I came to this interview and not credit God for everything that he does.
00:20:24.105 --> 00:20:29.521
He changed that criminal mindset that I had, you know, because I never considered myself a thug anyway.
00:20:29.521 --> 00:20:31.500
I just had a criminal mindset, you know.
00:20:31.500 --> 00:20:37.436
But criminality right, yeah, and God changed that, chuck, and I'm thankful, man.
00:20:38.138 --> 00:20:39.401
Wow, mike, shout out to you.
00:20:39.401 --> 00:20:41.384
Man Shout out to you.
00:20:41.384 --> 00:20:43.108
Thank you, brother, shout out to you.
00:20:43.108 --> 00:20:44.880
So let's talk about the documentary.
00:20:44.880 --> 00:20:46.644
Can we talk about that now?
00:20:46.644 --> 00:20:47.467
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:48.538 --> 00:20:50.285
So let's delve into the documentary.
00:20:50.285 --> 00:20:53.364
I never see things just solely about me.
00:20:53.364 --> 00:20:55.261
I like to bring other people along.
00:20:55.261 --> 00:21:00.105
My work has been centered and geared around advocacy.
00:21:00.105 --> 00:21:08.086
So I do a lot of advocate work because people need a voice, and so in the Bible it talks about being that voice in the wilderness.
00:21:08.086 --> 00:21:10.864
And I have said to God, let me be that.
00:21:10.864 --> 00:21:13.443
Yeah, let me be that voice in the wilderness for others.
00:21:13.443 --> 00:21:15.000
And I have a voice right now.
00:21:15.555 --> 00:21:33.127
Over the last 20 some years, every platform or every space that I have been in, I have been able to be an advocate, not just about Mike, because God had blessed me and I could have went on and found a whole nother industry to get in and made me a little bit of money or more money, and been OK.
00:21:33.127 --> 00:21:37.866
But that wasn't enough for me and so the documentary came about.
00:21:37.866 --> 00:21:45.707
I've been wanting to work on a documentary for the last 15, 16 years and so, but I didn't have all the resources to try to bring it together.
00:21:45.707 --> 00:21:48.540
Man, but when you faithful to god, man, god will make room.
00:21:48.540 --> 00:21:50.205
He will make room for those gifts y'all.
00:21:50.205 --> 00:21:51.616
And this is what's happening.
00:21:51.616 --> 00:21:57.740
So I brought along all these other advocates because that really what you see in the documentary really is not the full.
