From the jailhouse to the statehouse

Ebony, Jan, 1994 by Muriel L. Whetstone

HOPELESS thug. Incorringible gang-banger. Death-dealing drug pusher. All of the above, and worse, have been used to describe freshman state representative Coy Pugh. To let society tell it, Coy Pugh was fated to become a habitual criminal, destined to squander away his life spinning through the penal system's revolving doors. And had he listened to the cynics, he could still be breaking criminal statutes instead of crafting them, wasting away in the county jailhouse instead of contributing to society from the Illinois statehouse.

"I have been a resident inn the bowels of hell," he says, "and that experience has intimately made me aware of the problems that face our community. That awareness qualifies me to become a part of the solution."

In the bowels of hell, Rep. Pugh existed precariously along death's edge, stealing, using illegal drugs and selling narcotics, stolen merchandise and weapons. Now, as part of the solution, the former Chicago gang member represents virtually the same district in the state capitol, where he sits on the judiciary committee, he once terrorized. Pugh believes that his journey from lawbreaker to lawmaker is an inspiring example other young Blacks, especially Black men, can follow to turn their own lives around.

Pugh was the son of two entrepreneurs. His mother owned a local tavern, his father, a Standard Oil service station. Looking back on his crime-filled past, Pugh says he realizes now that his trouble with the law began when his father and mother split up.

"I can remember clearly when my father's control over me started dwindling," he recalls. "I was about 10 years old when the breakup happened and I began taking liquor out of the tavern and experimenting with wine and stuff."

Perhaps sensing where her oldest son was headed, his mother sold the tavern, moved her family and got the children more involved in church activities. "We were always a church-going family," he says, "but after the breakup, my mother really began to funnel us through the Christian church thing." The experience developed for him a deeper spiritual understanding and rooted his spiritual foundation.

But by the time he turned 12, he could no longer hide between the church pews from the dangers lurking outside its doors. He and his friends, he says, formed their first gang to fortify their passage through a Hispanic neighborhood on their route to school. After that, there were many times when they just skipped school altogether. It wasn't long before they were swiping soda pop from distribution trucks and committing other petty crimes.

Childhood pranks soon advanced to robbing stores, stealing meats and boxes of other merchandise. "Eventually, we started breaking into freight cars," he says. The first car, full of ketchup, yielded ammunition for a boyish tomato fight. The next break-in netted a cache of rifles, which they later sold on the streets.

His concept of the law was that you earned your badge of honor if you could successfully break it without getting caught. "At the time," he says, "we were under the impression that everybody was breaking the law, that if you didn't get caught, that was okay."

Steel cell doors slammed behind Pugh for the first time just days after his 17th birthday. He spent the next 15 years going in and out of cells on a host of charges -- from possession of illegal firearms, solicitation of a prostitute, to intent to deliver illegal drugs. His longest sentence was 18 months for falsifying government documents after he lied out his juvenile record on a post office employment application. He received probation but was later incarcerated after violating its terms with drug and illegal we

"I was never a good criminal," he says, adding that drugs were at the root of his problems. "I took anything that would black out reality, anything that would take me away from what was really going on."

When he was about 26 years old, he suffered two gunshot wounds after another gang member tried to rob him, he says. One bullet hit him in the arm, the other lodged two inches from his heart. "Although it was painful, I never felt like I was going to die," he says, adding that, "fortunately, I never shot or killed anyone."

In retrospect, he says that as a young man he couldn't find a place in society where he felt comfortable. He goes on to explain that African-Americans are taught to go out and get good briefcase-carrying jobs, but are not given the skills to do that. "Even if we are given the skills," he points out, "the opportunities are not there, particularly for Black males. This society is not designed to accept Black men."

He adds: "Individuals from that sub-culture, from the street, we'd go into jail looking for escape, looking for ways to get out, looking for people to reach out to us."

His life began to turn around, he recalls, when one of those people reached out to slap him down. About 10 ago, a drug rehabilitation counselor came out to the jail to interview him for her program. Instead of offering hope, he says, she told him that based on his past history, he was hopeless, incorrigible and a habitual criminal. Then she predicted that he would spend the rest of his life in jail.