Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #649841 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 371 pages

Customer Reviews

Better Than the Movie!
This is the life story of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the legendary founder of the Crips street gang turned America's foremost street peacemaker. This book greatly expands and clarifies the story told in "Redemption", the excellent cable movie starring Jamie Foxx

"Blue Rage, Black Redemption" is an incredible piece of well-written literature in its own right---notwithstanding the ultimate fate of the author---and it is a damning indictment of a cold, callous society. It describes the unchecked poverty, violence and broken schools of South Central that spawned the Crip phenomenon. And it describes Tookie's Herculean efforts to redeem himself from within the walls of San Quentin.

[The added material in this reprint by Tookie's friend Barbara Becnel is especially welcome in the context of today's ongoing debate over capital punishment in California.]

Good Book
tookie lets you know a lot in this book on how it all got started. i always wondered how in LA it was many gangs but mostly bloods and crips. this book lets you know about the crips. but, then you can pretty much figure things out with the bloods. this is a good book to read to me. he started it him and some other guys. then new comers take it to another level. usually how it always go.

Brian C
The other reviews are correct in that you have to read this book with an open mind. It appears all the reviews for this book were written by followers and friends of Tookie. Like I said, you have to really keep an open mind when reading it, knowing that it was written by a murderer who claims redemption but doesn't admit to his crime. Even the things he does admit, and profit from, lilke forming the Crips, he never fully achieves redemption. If so, then he would have cooperated with law enforcement to help dismantle the very gangs he preaches to children about not joining. He has not even so much as given up any other gang-bangers that he witnessed committing crimes. Its clear to see where his loyalties still lie. If I had to do it again, I would borrow the book to read so I wouldn't have to spend my money on it.