One could focus bitterly on the loss: Caliph Muab-El bounced around Wisconsin’s prison facilities nearly half his life. Or one could focus, as the soft-spoken, eloquent 32-year-old minister does, on the good he can do now.
Yet, the way to the now has been fraught with danger, hardship, and much self-work. When he was nine, his parents moved the family from Chicago to Milwaukee, mistakenly believing they would “escape the infestation of violence, drugs, gangs, and crime,” Muab-El explained.
Ironically, Milwaukee turned out to be worse. The low-income housing available “was so concentrated it made the infestation more intense.” At the same time, his father was not always residing with the family and his mother held down three jobs. As eldest, the responsibility of caring for his siblings fell on Muab-El.