From Drugs To Books, Baltimore Man Making Positive Name For Himself
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Too often, it seems, the stories that come out of Baltimore's worst neighborhoods rarely center on success.
But WJZ's Mike Schuh met a man, who, once a drug dealer, is now making a name for himself in a positive way.
D. Watkins made hundreds of thousands of dollars dealing drugs on the streets near Hopkins.
"If you can make it on these streets, you can make it anywhere. It's just that we just don't know anything else," Watkins said.
But early on, he knew the game wasn't for him.
"I spent most of my time self-medicating. I spent most of my time being depressed -- not just about what I was doing, but about my surroundings," said Watkins.
With friends and relatives murdered before his eyes, Watkins had to find a pathway out. The money, cars and girls weren't enough.
"No matter how many material things give us the illusion of success, I knew we weren't going to make it... I knew we weren't going to be anything," he said.
He moved from the streets to wholesale, from wholesale to buying a bar. He sold the bar to go to college, and then earned two graduate degrees.
These days: "I'm a professor at the University of Baltimore. I teach creative writing."
His first and second books? They're New York Times best-sellers.
"I saw bullets rip through the faces of adolescents. We go through mid-life crises at 15 around here. I saw murder after murder after murder after murder," he writes in his memoir, The Cook up.
A best-seller from a life not encouraged.
"My English teacher told me I was nothing, that I was an idiot and that I wasn't going to be anything," said Watkins.
He has donated copies of his books to city schools.
"It's about the kids in Baltimore public schools now who need to see books that talk about these issues that I didn't get when I was coming up," he said.
And now, Taharka Brothers Ice Cream -- a black-owned business rooted in the idea of transformation -- has a new flavor.
"The whole idea of it being it's not how you start, but it's how you finish," said Watkins.
Nationally, the offers are pouring in, but Watkins knows in his heart that he can't leave.
"What I do now as a teacher and as a person who pulls people off these blocks, there's a joy in that that you can't even put a price on," he said.
At 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse on North Avenue, D. Watkins and the Taharka Brothers Ice Cream will officially unveil their new flavor of ice cream.
