Tracy Davis was born, and grew up right here, in Atlanta.
The oldest of three kids, Davis said he came from a good home, with a mother who worked hard to take care of her kids.
But Davis had to grow up, at an early age.
“I became a teenage parent when I was at the age of 16,” he said.
Then came the lure of the streets.
“I got a little older, got curious about the streets, and I had a friend who was into the streets, selling drugs, and I took my shot at it one time,” he recalled.
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Davis said that, initially, he was just curious about selling drugs and wasn’t really into it. But soon found, “I was good at it.”
“Just wanting to be doing what your peers were doing. The majority of people my age – not all of ‘em – but a lot of people I see were selling drugs, and that’s what we kind of graduated to,” he described.
Davis acknowledged that they all knew the consequences of selling drugs, but it happened so often that it felt normal.
“Selling drugs when we was coming up was like a culture,” Davis said. “It was so natural that it seemed like it was right. It was so natural in the neighborhood that it felt normal.”
Davis said it eventually caught up with him, and he ended up going to jail for three-and-a-half years for trafficking cocaine. Now, he’s trying to find his way back to living on the right side of the law.
“After being this convict and developing this record, how do I give back? How do I get back? How do I get back to the person I want to be in society without everybody looking at me as a convicted felon, and work out here and not have to struggle,” Davis asked. “I’m 44 years old. There’s not too many people breaking their necks to hire an ex-convict at age 44.”
But Davis said he’s got to try – to show his daughters, now 26 and 27, that their dad is still trying to do something.
“You put in the effort, and can’t nobody deny you nothing,” he affirmed.
That’s how Davis got drawn to the Construction Ready program.
“Now I have somewhere to start. This is a door that opens up for me, when I didn’t always have that at first,” he said.
Davis said the class has helped him learn skills and communicate more professionally. But more importantly, he said it’s a shot at a second chance.
“There’s gonna be people out here who mess up. There’s gonna be people out here who need a second chance. And all I want people to know is that, if you’re ever in position to give a person a second chance… give ‘em a chance every now and then,” he urged. “Give ‘em a shot.”
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