Tookie's birth. . .On December 29, 1953, in New Orleans Charity Hospital, I entered the world kicking and screaming in a caesarean ritual of blood and scalpels. Because this was 1950s, pre-Civil-Rights Louisiana, my 17-year-old mother, a "colored woman," was deprived of anesthetics as her torso was slit from sternum to pubic bone. Over and over again, she sang the Christmas carol Silent Night to distract her from the pain.I was christened Stanley Tookie Williams III, but mostly referred to as Tookie.Inside South Central Los Angeles. . .These hustlers would bet on just about anything - even who could spit, urinate, or throw a rock the farthest. I have witnessed cockfights, cricket fights, even fish fights, and pay-per-view street fights between individuals from 6 to 50 years of age.The Gang As Family. . .Barring the relationship with my mother, the closest reality to family for me was the Crips. In the ultimate display of fatherhood irresponsibility I had forsaken my sons to barnstorm throughout South Central Los Angeles in the name of "Crippen." I had only faint memories of my first-born son Travon when he was a baby. I only saw him when I periodically showed up to have sex with his mother Bonnie. In reality I was no more than a sperm donor who took the position that once the job was done, more fathering wasn't necessary.At Last, Redemption. . .I was beginning to understand that my experiences with the dysfunctional status quo of the prison culture - as well as drug addiction, poverty, gangsterism, racism, and other roadblocks - had become the excuses that defined my life. But no longer would my life, my being, be dictated by blind ignorance. Nor would I ever again allow the excuse of circumstance to dictate who I should be. It was daily studying and questioning that prompted my soul searching. I began to develop a sense of critical reasoning from which sprang the first stirrings of conscience. This was the moment when redemption infused itself into my life.