Kevin Harris: From Incarceration to Community Leadership

Growing Up in Detroit’s Shadow

Kevin Harris was just another kid on Detroit’s East Side in the 1970s and 80s. He didn’t know how dire things were because he was just a kid. “There’s a line that Jay Z has in one of his songs that says, you know, he had to match the Reaganomics,” Kevin told me. “That was that was the air, but when I was younger younger. It was it was pretty cool because you know, even though my mom was single and we’ve all heard that story. You don’t really know how dire things are because you’re just a kid they right they don’t know any difference.”

But as Kevin entered his teenage years, crack was flooding the streets. The chamber brothers, a notorious drug organization from Mariana, Arkansas (the same hometown as Kevin’s mother’s family), had taken over the Detroit drug trade. The community was devastated. Kevin described opening friends’ refrigerators to find nothing but a jar of mayonnaise with a butter knife. That was how a lot of kids grew up.

The Pull of the Streets

It started innocent enough. Kevin was growing up with his group of friends, like little rascals. Then one friend would disappear for weeks or months and show back up with money in their pocket, new shoes, looking great. They’d tell Kevin about “sitting in the spot” for older guys running crack houses. The younger kids would “roll” 24/7, making what they called “a two dollar top” for every ten-dollar rock they sold.

Kevin’s older brother Steve was already deep in the drug trade by 18, driving Dodge Raiders around town. The math was simple and devastating. “If you work at Little Caesars or McDonald’s, you might have made in those days $150 at the end of the week,” Kevin explained. “Where you could go, you know, because by that time we graduated. We weren’t working we learn how to buy our own houses or sometimes we would get what you call funded.”

Off a $1,400 investment in two ounces, Kevin could make $4,000 in work. About $2,500 profit in a weekend. “So here is I’ve just made four grand. Where has my mother is telling me I need to keep my McDonald’s my McDonald’s job, right? And unfortunately I just didn’t have to wear with all for that logic to even compete compute,” Kevin said.

The Arrest That Changed Everything

Kevin got caught at 18 in a setup. A neighborhood guy whose girlfriend Kevin was involved with called the police and told them everything. When Kevin got in a cab to make a delivery with thousands of dollars worth of crack, police pulled them over. Kevin stuffed the drugs in the seat, hoping they wouldn’t find them. But after stopping and starting the search multiple times, one officer decided to search one more time. He found the bag.

The police made up a story about observing hand-to-hand sales to justify the stop, even though Kevin had come straight out of the house into the cab. Kevin thought he could beat it at trial because of the officers’ lies, but he was wrong. When the judge sentenced him to 14 years, Kevin thought his life was over. At 18 years old, 14 years felt like forever.

Learning to Survive Inside

Kevin went to Michigan Training Unit, known as gladiator school. The prisons were so crowded they had young people in a big gym with double bunks from end to end. Kevin’s whole neighborhood seemed to be locked up together. For a while, it felt like summer vacation with kids his age watching MTV and acting like they were still on the streets.

But Kevin learned a hard truth about doing serious time. “If you’re gonna make it, you literally have to forget about the world. You you have to forget about what’s happening on the outside girlfriends, even family. Because if you’re not gonna make it you’re not gonna make it you have to totally just shut down as if that world doesn’t exist,” he told me.

Then tragedy struck. Kevin’s mother was killed while he was locked up. He got to attend her funeral in state blues with an officer escort. It was embarrassing and devastating. For five or six years after that, Kevin went downhill with depression and anger.

Finding Faith Behind the Walls

Kevin had grown up with what they called “a praying grandmother” down in Arkansas. His family was deeply rooted in religion from their time in the Mississippi Delta. But it took a fellow prisoner named JD Pats to get Kevin back to church. JD had been “a cool crackhead” on the streets but was now praying and praising in his cell next door.

When JD invited Kevin to church, Kevin figured he had nothing to lose after seven years of hell. A white pastor was preaching about the word, and Kevin remembered thinking, “This is what life is supposed to be like. Freedom or wife. living right. doing good. And here I am sitting up in here with with seven more years to go.”

The challenge was getting to Bible study. Kevin could see guys studying under a tree from his room window. He wanted to join them but would have to walk past all his friends with a big Bible. He tried hiding it under his shirt. Finally, he got up the nerve to just walk fast with the Bible visible. The peer pressure was real, but Kevin was hurting too bad to care what anyone thought.

Preparing for Reentry

Kevin spent his last years preparing. He took classes until the Pell grants were eliminated. He taught himself legal research and writing in the law library, figuring he could work as a paralegal when he got out. But Kevin learned that no amount of preparation truly readies you for release.

“There is no there is nothing and that you can do in prison. Nothing you can from my experience nothing you can do in prison that will prepare you for getting out,” Kevin said. “The first day out was like meeting Mike Tyson day one. Right between the eyes. An entire different reality.”

Kevin’s girlfriend Tracy, a bank manager, had remained a friend throughout his sentence. She’d told him she wasn’t waiting 14 years, but she had love for him she wouldn’t admit. Without her, Kevin would have gone to a homeless shelter. Tracy became his rock and eventually his wife.

Kevin went on to become Pastor Harris at the Nazarene Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit and even ran for state representative in Michigan in 2020. His story shows how the nightmare doesn’t have to define the ending.