Image via Ramelle Kamack
At the age of 21, Ramelle Kamack went to jail for his role in a gang-related shooting. During his nearly two decades of incarceration, the Inglewood native has turned his life around, earning three college degrees and becoming a writer. In his own words, heâs attempting to use his education to build a platform that prioritizes giving back to underserved communities: Â
His POW columns reflect on his life in prison, the circumstances that led him there, and the inextinguishable hope that sustains him while serving a life sentence.Â
You can write to Ramelle at the address below:
Ramelle Kamack
#AA-1281
CTF -Facility C (ZW-308)
P.O. Box 689
Soledad, CA 93960
Inglewood, California
It was the summer of â86 and my 30-year old mother faced a crossroads: leave South Central and its ensuing chaos behind, or stay put, wait things out, and build a future for her expanding family.
Vibrant and ambitious, she was married to an Air Force veteran, had two young boys, and a third son was expected in the coming months. At five-foot-two, she was a small woman. Her smile was subtle and inviting, and her voice was full of confidence. But behind her eyesâones that my father would later describe as âfieryââwas heartbreak.
I was born during this time of tragedy and it would be many years later before my mother revealed her past to me. I gathered fragments of our life and pieced them together like a jigsaw puzzle.
The year I was born, Michael Jackson dominated the pop charts, Magic Johnson and The Show Time Lakers played beneath championship banners at the Great Western Forum, and with the recent collapse of the Soviet Union, many people around the world hoped the decade would bring global peace. President Ronald Reaganâs plan to improve the U.S. economyâhe called it Reaganomicsâpromised a better tomorrow and led many to believe that if they trusted the economy enough, worked hard enough, and paid enough taxes things would get better.
Meanwhile, my mother had her own plan. âI saved diligently with the goal of moving out of South Central for a safer future,â she said. But as it often is with many Black and brown families in Los Angeles, things didnât go as planned.
Reaganomics soon crippled the economy and left tens of thousands homeless and without potential employment. Housing projects in Watts were jam packed. Comptonâs too. And when black tar heroin, sherm, and cocaine flooded the neighborhoods many people turned to hustling, prostitution, and gangs to earn money and control it. We hadnât gotten out soon enough and were trapped in the middle of it all.
After being discharged from the Air Force, my father worked for the L.A. County assessorâs office downtown, where droves of tall buildings stretched into the sky. A former high school athlete and jazz pianist, he was a prideful man and though his job did not require it, he favored dressing in a freshly pressed suit and colorful necktie each workday. I canât recall my father ever wearing a pair of jeans, even on the weekends, and whenever someone would compliment one of his business suits heâd reply in a rehearsed and smooth tone, âOh this thing? I cut our lawn in this.â
In â89, we welcomed my younger brother, Ryan, into our family and with the addition of another mouth to feed, my motherâs plan of saving enough money to move away began to wither. Besides, as the years passed, my father concealed a habit that worked against us.
One Friday night, he left our house with his paycheck and didnât return until the next morning. At breakfast, when our front door opened and he stepped into our living room he looked like a zombie. His dark suit jacket was crumpled and looked as if heâd slept in it. Ashen creases lined, his cheekbones and his glossy eyes struggled to focus on my mother.
âHe picked up heavy drinking and doing cocaine while in the Air Force,â she told me.
Soon, his habit became a Friday night routine and one day my mother had enough. When he left for the evening, she went to a hardware store and bought a pair of lock and key sets. At home, she replaced our locks with the new ones and hid the keys somewhere in her bedroom. The following morning we were at our breakfast table when the jiggling sound of my fatherâs keys drew our eyes to the front door. The lock rattled and the door jerked but didnât budge.
âYou donât live here anymore,â my mother shouted triumphantly.
âOpen the door.â
âGo away!â
We sat without making a sound until seconds later, a tapping noise came from our bedroom window. My brothers and I scampered from the table, went to our bedroom, and peered through our window. Secured behind iron bars, our windowpane was about eight feet from the ground and above a row of bushes. My older brother slid the glass open.
âOpen the door,â my father told us from below.
âMom said not to,â my brother called back, âor else sheâll lock us out too.â
Livid, my father turned away and sat on our porch for about an hour or so until my mother let him back in.
This ordeal happened once, twice, then more times than I remember. Each time, heâd get his paycheck and waste money on drugs and alcohol. Then my mother would change the locks and eventually forgive him until the next time. Pretty soon, our kitchen drawer was full of spare locks and keys-each one was a memento of one of their fights.
Sometimes, when my father called to us from below our window, and when my brothers and I refused to get involved in their routine, heâd call us traitors and said that we favored our mother over him. I found it strange that heâd say that. I never favored her or anyone else over my father. I favored a roof over my head and a warm bed over him.
I was five or six then, and I believe it was at this time that my mother forsook her hope to move us to a safer neighborhood. But it was also a time of promise. Shortly after my school tested me and deemed me gifted and talented, my mother taught me one of the most valuable lessons that I would ever receive.
One day, my mom watched TV from her bed while I sat beside her and played with my Hotwheels. For no apparent reason, she turned and faced me. I could feel her steady gaze tugging and pulling my face toward her like a magnet. I looked up and her round eyes met mine.
âI believe in you,â she said. âYou can do anything you put your mind to.â
My mom was a woman who knew many things: she knew that I liked my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut diagonally, not horizontally like my brothers had; when she read bedtime stories to me she knew how to do all of the charactersâ voices, even The Big Bad Wolfs. But when she said I could do anything it was clear to me that my mother had gone crazy.
âI canât do anything I want, Mom.â
âYes you can.â
I sighed before patiently explaining, âI canât flap my arms like a bird and fly.â
âWell,â she said, âwhen youâre older you can go to college and learn how to build something for your arms thatâll make you fly.â
Make me fly? She was crazier than Iâd thought.
âOkay,â I tried again, âI can.ât jump from the ground way to the top of a building.â
A few seconds passed before she smiled and said calmly, âWell, if you build something for your legs thatâll make you jump high enough, you can land on a building.â
âOkay,â I said quickly. I was fed up with whatever twisted game she was playing. I scooted off the bed, left the Hotwheels behind, and rushed out the doorway before she could talk my other ear off. I left her bedroom that day not caring too much about that strange conversation we had. But it wouldnât be long before I would depend on her words of confidence.
It was a few years later, when my racing heart felt too large for my scrawny chest, that my mother and I rushed toward my schoolâs auditorium. I clutched my recorder in my sweaty palm and gulped. My class was to perform a music recital in front of the entire school, everyone who was a real somebody would be there: the principal, the lunch ladies, even the fifth graders.
âI believe in you,â my mom said as we walked into the crowded room. âYou can do anything you put your mind to.â
I was out of options. It was time to go on stage and I had no choice but to give her words a chance.
In the middle of my classâs performance, in front of a packed auditorium, the time had come for my solo. The others fell silent as I inched forward and raised my recorder. I positioned my fingers like Mom and I had practiced for weeks, took a deep breath and replayed her words in my mind, and as I blew into the instrument, time seemed to stand still. The sound that flowed into the air was the most profound thing that I had ever heardâall five seconds of it. I had given a wonderful performance.
Later in my life, when the obstacles grew more daunting and I would confront challenges such as âYouâre not strong enough for thisâ; âYouâre not fast enough for thatâ; âYouâre not good enough to do thisâ the words that my mother had given me were always there to tell me that I could achieve anything I put my mind to. âI believe in you,â echoed over and over throughout my young life. Over time and into adulthood, something changed; the words were the same, but the voice that rooted me on was different. It wasnât my motherâs anymore. It had become my own.
Later, when goals seemed too difficult or frightening to accomplish I found motivation in those four words to overcome my fears and work hard enough to succeed.
After college, I never built something that could make me fly like a bird as my mother believed (I became a writer instead) but the other night I saw this guy on TV showcasing something called a jet-propelled wing suit. It was shiny and red and lined with blue trim. He spread his arms and poof! Within an instant, he zipped and glided through the air like a bird. It was incredible!
Of course, I donât personally know that guy but I am sure of one thing-he wasnât flying by happenstance. When he was a boy and told his parents that he wanted to fly one day, I bet they looked him straight in his eyes and guess what four words probably came from their mouth?
âI believe in you.â
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