(gentle music) (audience applauding) - So my father was murdered in 1983, and I remember like every single day, I was waiting on the guy who killed my father to come home from prison because I was gonna kill him like he killed my father.

I mean, every single day, I was putting up his picture online, looking at him every single day.

I remember when he got released from prison and I knew somebody that had a relationship with him, and I asked him to set up a meeting because I wanted to meet with him.

So the guy who I knew got back to me and say, "He is willing to sit down and meet with me."

So I remember when he came to meet with me, all the time, what I was thinking was was taking his life.

So I had my guys, when I say my guys on security, I mean on security in the alley, in the gangway.

And I had a pistol on me, a gun on me because I wanted revenge for my father.

So when the guy came, the first thing he said was, "I'm sorry, I apologize."

He say, "I tell you what happened."

So at that time, I wasn't really trying to hear none of that.

I'm just thinking about revenge for my father.

My father's not here no more.

So that's all I was thinking about.

Revenge, revenge, revenge.

Then, I recall one of the OGs had told me over and over about it's so important to listen, connect, and have empathy for people.

So as he kept talking about that to me, I kept listening to that situation.

I kept listening to him.

So once he continued saying that with me back then, it stayed with me.

Know when somebody tell you something that's five years ago, 10 years ago, you remember what they said.

So I was just listening, listening, listening.

So that particular day right there, since that OG kept telling me that, I was able to get that guy mercy for killing my father.

It took so much from me to just let him live.

But since he kept playing in my ear like it's not worth that.

So he told me at a early age that you can forgive people.

But it wasn't no easy thing to do.

It wasn't easy at all.

I've been in this violence prevention field for over 20 some years.

I mediated thousands of conflicts that could have led to somebody getting shot or killed.

I train thousands of workers all over the world to do violence prevention work.

And I wanna just stop right there for one second.

A lot of times people who look like me and who been through what I've been through, a lot of brothers and sisters, I see a lot of them here in this crowd that I'm familiar with and know, we started out one way and end up changing our life and become something different.

So I think it's important for people to understand that people can change though.

I want people to understand redemption is real.

Second chances is real though.

So the OG who I was telling you all about, I was talking about Shorty Freeman, and Shorty Freeman was the founder of the group I was a part of.

But he was constantly in my ear though, and that meant the world to me for somebody who I look up to.

I remember this young man got killed in the gas station, and his cousins, his friends, and everybody was looking to retaliate.

His family reached out to me, say, "Kobe man, you gotta get a hold of him."

I've been knowing his father forever.

We grew up with his kids.

Say, "Kobe, you got to reach him."

And all he kept saying, man, "They killed my cousin, man.

I got to do what I got to do."

So I had to spend a lot of time with him, and we call it babysitting, constantly being in his ear, taking him from one community to another when trying to show him something different.

Not just him, his friends.

So while I'm working with him every day, my coworker's working with the other people every day.

So doing this work, man, I like going to this, I think we probably sometimes make it look so easy, but it ain't so easy.

It's like we not giving up on nobody, but we got to go through different scenarios.

We got to try this way, try that way, and try that way and every way.

And sometimes it come out like it's we resolve something, but they don't know the steps we had to go through to get there.

So after spending so much time with this young man and with his friends, he was able to get his guy or the people some mercy.

He gave them mercy for what they did.

And I was so happy about that because I'm looking at the fact I gave somebody mercy, now he gave somebody mercy.

That's why I say violence is a learned behavior, and when you treated the right way, you could unlearn that.

So today, right now, me and one of my close brothers, I look at him as a brother, Joakim Noah for the Chicago Bulls.

We started up Peacefully, and what we doing is uniting the whole city, working with 28 violence prevention organizations.

We just unite the city, bringing people together from different walks of life.

And that's why it's important and why I love doing what I'm doing, because the people in that CVI field, in this movement, we meet people where they are.

We not judging people, we not looking down on people.

So so many people come to us.

So we touched over four to 500 young men who was looking at each other like this was my opposition.

I'm against him, I'm against that.

Now these same brothers are building with each other.

They getting to know each other.

Now they see they have more in common than not in common.

That's why it's so important not to give up on anyone.

Everybody have a role to play.

That's why it's important to fund programs like CVI, it's so important because we cannot do this work without having funding.

We cannot do this work.

So the impact that I see with this league is people are now hanging out with each other.

When they see people in different neighborhoods now, "Oh, I know him from the one city."

"Oh, he all right."

"Oh, I see you Saturday.

We'll beat y'all in that game tomorrow."

They bringing it back to the court and playing ball.

Now I see when we first started, it's like, man, everybody mean looking each other, don't want to have nothing to do with each other.

Now we see players picking each other up from opposing groups.

So I want to leave y'all with this.

It ain't how you start, it's how you finish.

And please do not give up on people who've been incarcerated.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) (gentle music)