Growing up, Al-amin Muhammad saw violence in the streets of Chicago and it was clear in his mind he did not want to get involved in it.
Then he was negatively influenced by an event that would turn his early life upside down.
“My parents had problems. They divorced. I did not know how to react to that. I went somewhere else to find that love I was used to having in the wrong places. I started joining a gang, doing drugs, hurting people,” he said.
This Thursday, community members gathered at the Thursday Morning Round Table in the Nancy Cantor Warehouse to listen to Muhammad´s story and how he is helping those most in need in Syracuse.
Al-amin Muhammad had a rough life from a very early age. His belonging to street gangs led him to make bad decisions that put him into prison several times.
When describing the thought processes behind gang violence, Muhammad provides details, and shares a shaking story that is essential to the person he is today.
“There is a sad mental thinking that young men think that being shot is cool, that you get more ranking. I used to feel like that. I got shot one time and I was pronounced dead, and they brought me back to life,” he said.
After a series of mishaps, Muhammad´s life turned around thanks to a social worker who showed him he loved him like no other person had ever done.
“He told me he believed I was going to help a lot of people. He told me to not give up. He hugged me, he kissed me in the cheek, and told me to relax in peace. I had never felt that love in my life,” Muhammad said.
After those gang episodes in Chicago and Atlanta, Muhammad moved to Syracuse following his wife, whom she met on Facebook and married the day after meeting her in person. They have been married for three years now.
Muhammad was struck by the poverty rates in Syracuse and set out to do whatever he could to help those people in the same situation he was in just about eight years ago. He founded We Rise Above the Streets Recovery Outreach, a nonprofit organization destined to help those in need in the Syracuse community.
Every Saturday at 10 a.m., during “Sandwich Saturday,” Muhammad and the volunteers who have joined the movement, illustrated by the motto “If We Eat They Eat,” go out to Lincoln Middle School and distribute sack lunches to those who need them.
“I just want everybody to come to Sandwich Saturday, just to come and see the event, and come and see this epic moment, and to see the problem that is going on in their city. Come join us, come join the movement, because it is a movement. You have a lot of people from the city of Syracuse and outside Syracuse who travel six or seven hours just to help out brothers and sisters. It is mind-blowing.”
For three years, We Rise Above the Streets has been fully funded and supported by individual donations from community members. Muhammad said he would not be surprised if this were not sustainable in the long run. For this reason, he encourages people to join and contribute in whichever way they are able to.
“We are not a religious organization, and poverty has no colors. Whether you are Catholic, Muslim, Black, White, or whatever, everybody is welcome.”
