5:00pm | In case you missed it live, watch Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries and author of “Tattoos of the Heart” speaking at the Long Beach Public Library
1:00pm | The Long Beach Post is proud to announce that it will be streaming Father Boyle’s reading of his book, “Tattoos of the Heart,” from Long Beach Public Library live tomorrow at 2:00pm. Thank you to the Long Beach Public Library Programs, Friends of the Long Beach Public Library, and Father Greg Boyle.
12:00pm | There is something to be said for a person who, when facing even the harshest criticism hailing from the echelons of power, handling intense poverty, confronting the most distinct form of American violence — gang violence — looks calmly forward and still says, “There is something redeemable here.”
Father Greg Boyle, a 57-year-old Jesuit Roman Catholic priest, was appointed pastor of the Delores Mission in 1986. This Boyle Heights neighborhood parish was the first one for many Hispanics who migrated to an area that was deeply entrenched in gang violence and a lack of resources. In his tenure there, he became fixed on gang members much to the detriment of his superiors as well as the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). While the LAPD accused him of being soft on gang violence, he simultaneously dealt with critics trying to remove him from the parish in 1989.
His view, however, was one that is hard to argue with: even gang members are redeemable. This belief in the power of humanity garnering its energy for the well-being of all is something Boyle never backed up on. For his message was clear to both his critics and the gang members whose lives he attempts to alter to this day: give these people jobs and stop killing one another. In his own words, “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.”
In 1992, the last year Boyle served in the parish and the most devastating year in gang violence with over 1,000 gang-related homicides, Boyle wanted to actually create and exacerbate change. He and community organizers dispensed fliers with a simple message “Jobs for the Future (Work is a Human Right).” The program he started in 1988 to help educate, dispense skills, and create jobs for the marginalized had now morphed, at the peak of unrest, into fruition as Homeboy Bakery.
This bakery had what many felt, particularly in 1992, was a dangerous experiment: to provide rival gang members a space in which they worked side-by-side. Since its inception, some 12,000 gang members have passed through its doors to receive job skills training, engage in therapy sessions, and even have their gang-related tattoos removed. His work speaks volumes of the simple power of caring for one another and, even though Homeboy Industries has experienced economic hardships like any other business, Boyle continues to push forward with his message about how intervention in gang membership and recruitment can exist on a humane level.
An acknowledged expert on gangs and intervention approaches as well as a renowned speaking, Father Boyle serves on the National Gang Center Advisory Board and the Advisory Board for the Loyola Law School Center for Juvenile Law and Policy. Long Beach will have the privilege of hearing him read from his book, “Tattoos of the Heart,” which was named one of the best books of 2010 by Publishers Weekly, at the Long Beach Public Library Main Auditorium at 110 Pacific Avenue. The event occurs tomorrow, December 10, at approximately 2:00pm, with doors opening at 1:30pm; admission to the event is free. Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell will be providing the introduction.
Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries and author of “Tattoos of the Heart.”