Phillip Sample: From Gang Leader to Community Advocate

The Gang Leader Who Became the Father He Never Had

When Marvin Cotton Jr. told me I needed to talk with Phillip Sample, I had no idea I was about to hear one of the most honest transformations I’ve encountered on this show. Phillip went from joining a gang at 11 years old to leading his own crew by 14, then spending 15 years in prison for assault with intent to commit murder. Today, he’s working with gang-involved youth through his organization Responsible Able Hands and Minds of Detroit, sitting at tables with mayors and advocating for his community. But the path between those two points runs through some of the darkest territory a person can navigate.

Growing Up in the Crossfire

Phillip’s childhood moved between Detroit and Chicago, shuttling through what he calls “gangism and drugs and alcohol, listening, domestic violence and just all the stuff that we deal with in our communities due to idle hands, dysfunction and ill education.” His father was an older married man who chose his existing family, leaving Phillip without that foundation. “My father was an older married man with children. My mother was a young girl. He chose family, which makes sense, I guess,” Phillip told me. “I wouldn’t probably know him if he walked past the rest.”

At 10 years old, Phillip became “father-like” to his younger siblings when his brother’s father was murdered. The streets weren’t exactly safe, but they were familiar. “I definitely did fear the streets,” he said, describing a childhood where getting your house shot up at 10 or 11 years old was just another scary moment to process. The gang life offered what his home couldn’t: identity, purpose, and a place to belong.

The Shootout That Changed Everything

In 1995, Phillip was in a halfway house, allowed home for a weekend visit. It was supposed to be a celebration, but rival gang members saw it as an opportunity. “They came through one time and, you know, just street rules of engagement. That’s not something that they do. We don’t ride down. They don’t ride down our block,” Phillip explained. When they came back for a second pass, the shootout began.

Phillip ran to his girlfriend’s house, but his pager kept going off with 911 calls. When he called back to the block, he learned the unthinkable: a baby had been shot in the crossfire. “I fell back on the porch like, oh, with no way,” he remembered. The next morning, police came for him. He was charged with first-degree murder for the child and three counts of assault with intent to commit murder.

At trial, 27 witnesses testified against him, with only one in his favor. “I kind of felt like all the sacrifices that I had made, you know, I devoted my life, my freedom, my safety, I fed these people. And to have nobody in support of that was like just for a lot of them, bro. And then again, some of my own people testified on me,” Phillip said. He was eventually found not guilty of the murder charge but convicted on the assault charges.

Finding Purpose in the Darkest Place

Phillip’s first two years in prison were consumed with thoughts of suicide. “My first two years in prison was how to kill myself without it hurting so bad,” he told me. But at some point, writing became his lifeline. “The book saved me that period,” he said, referring to what became “The Life, Death and Resurrection of Phillip Sample,” which he worked on throughout his entire 15 years inside.

He dove into psychology and sociology, trying to understand his own triggers and the systems that had shaped him. “I wanted to know, you know, why when I get angry, it’s so extreme, like, why, you know, like, what, what, where does this, these triggers come from?” After four years, he joined the Nation of Islam and became a minister. But his influence grew too large for prison administrators’ comfort, and he spent three years in solitary.

When he got out of segregation, Phillip had learned a crucial lesson about adapting. “I came out of there like, you know what, I got to be quiet. I got to find a different way to move and I got to maneuver my way up out of here.” He focused on preparing for his eventual release through poetry programs with the University of Michigan and continued self-education.

Stepping Back Into the World

After 15 years, Phillip walked out of Jackson prison in 2009 wearing the brown clothes they give you and carrying “a whole bunch of paperwork and plans.” The technology shock was real, but he adapted quickly. “I spent a few days sitting in the corner with the phone, you know, within a year I was recording and mixing my own music. I was doing graphic designs, making my own flyers.”

He took every opportunity offered, no matter how small. “Everything that was offered to me, I took whether it was a $10 voucher for ID, a $50 voucher for work clothes, whatever it was, I took it.” He got a job with Habitat for Humanity, building houses in his old neighborhood. The humility was intentional. “I came out ready to pay my dues, man. I knew for a fact that I owed society, but I also felt like society owed me.”

Building Something New

Phillip’s path to starting his nonprofit wasn’t planned. Through his poetry work with the University of Michigan, he met a mentor named Albino Garcia from Albuquerque who flew him out to join the board of Circle for Justice Innovations. “I’m learning this thing from the other side. I’m looking at what the funders are looking for, I’m looking like how it needs to be structured,” Phillip explained.

By 2017, he founded Responsible Able Hands and Minds of Detroit. The early years were brutal. “The first three years was hard. Anything that got done or halfway done came out of my pocket and I didn’t even have pocket.” He was homeless twice during this period, but refused to let desperation drive him back to old patterns.

Today, Phillip works with gang-involved youth through his partnership with CSIAD Detroit. “Nobody understands them better than me, man. Nobody get it like I get it,” he said. He’s at tables with mayors, advocating for alternatives to incarceration and fair housing for formerly incarcerated people. The kid who once defended his block with violence now defends his community with policy and programs.

Phillip’s story isn’t about erasing the past or pretending transformation is easy. It’s about understanding that the same fierce loyalty that can destroy lives can also rebuild them when pointed in the right direction. The father he never had became the father he chose to be, not just to his own children but to a whole generation of young people who need to see that there’s another way forward.