‘My gift and my curse.’ After 12 years of incarceration, man uses faith to help Macon

When Carl Myers was placed in handcuffs on Oct. 8, 2004, he almost felt a sense of relief.

“I don’t want to say like I went to the county jail happy, but I went to the county jail with a feeling of, ‘I don’t have to run any more,’” he said.

Myers would spend the next 12 years of his life in prison becoming the person who would work to make Macon a better place and help others avoid his choices.

Myers grew up in New York, and after his parents divorced, he moved around a lot. He traveled to Georgia with his dad when he was around 14 years old, but his dad sent him back to New York after he started selling weed and lost interest in school.

‘Throwing rocks at prison’

After failing to get a high school diploma, Myers started attending a GED program at Bronx Community College where he became friends with a man who introduced him to crack cocaine, Myers said..

He taught Myers how to cook it, cut it, package it and sell it.

“It was a lifestyle that, I mean, it’s no hope in it; like it’s no goals. You just really living,” Myers said.

After relationship issues, he started robbing in addition to selling drugs, and decided to move back to Georgia to start over.

“I didn’t want to call my dad. I had something inside me like I had too much pride to call my dad and then I had something to prove to my dad like I can make it on my own,” he said.

He got in contact with old friends from high school, and the first night he stayed with them they took him on a robbery, he said.

“Day-to-day things was getting worse, but things was looking good if you understand what I’m saying. Like, I was throwing rocks at prison, basically, but I was still living,” he said.

Finally, Oct. 8, 2004 came. That morning he had an argument with the woman he was living with, and when he left the apartment, his friends drove up. They were planning a robbery.

They arrived at the location, which was a small post office. As he was putting on his mask before entering the property, a woman drove by, and he locked eyes with her.

“I felt that something wasn’t right, but I went against that feeling and still went inside,” he said.

Everything went smoothly inside, but when they went back outside, the getaway driver was gone.

They panicked, threw the money in a dumpster to retrieve it later and ran into the woods to find refuge.

“I pulled out my phone, but I had nobody to call at this time,” he said. “At this point, it was like it clicked, but it clicked for the positive. I was like this is it. This is no more running. I’m saying let me face this. This might be the turning point in my life.”

After they were taken to jail, his mother came to visit him and all she wanted to know was if he committed the crime.

“I’ve been lying to her my whole life really,” Myers said. “I never been like really truthful with her, but at this moment, I told her. I was like, ‘Yeah, I did it, and I’m just ready to accept the consequences.’”

However, Myers didn’t know the extent of the consequences at the time. He said his case was influenced by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which President Joe Biden was instrumental in passing. The 1994 crime law encouraged states to increase prison sentences for monetary incentives to build more prisons.

Myers was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which is the maximum sentence for armed robbery, with 12 years served.

His spiritual journey through the prison system

While he was in the Rockdale County Jail, he earned his GED, and his aunt sent him two Qurans, which helped him start his spiritual journey.

At Coffee Correctional Facility, Myers said he was blessed with a great roommate who really encouraged him to improve himself while he was in prison.

“He had a life sentence, but when I say this guy had so much life about him; like he used to look at me and was like, ‘Man, you’re going home soon. You need to start preparing,’” Myers said. “I started to work in the kitchen because I realized that in order to like move around in prison, you had to have some type of detail.”

He started going to the prison library to study business. He met another Muslim who convinced him to start going to Jummah, a Friday prayer.

After five years at Coffee, he was moved to Macon State Prison, which Myers said was a different experience. People had everything from cell phones to Jordan sneakers, which made the environment more hostile because people would fight over those luxuries.

While he was there for four years, a man invited him to December fast, in which the Nation of Islam participates, and he continued to develop spiritually. He was then moved to Willard State Prison, and he found himself surrounded by several different gangs that all hated each other.

“When I got there I was like, ‘Why am I in this environment?’” he said. “In me asking that question, like, ‘Why am I here?’ I began to see my purpose.”

He developed relationships with the men and created a friendly environment between the gangs. As the correctional officers took notice, they started giving Myers more freedom to move around the prison.

“From there, I got out of prison, and I just had this attitude of reformation, and I knew what it took for me to reform myself,” he said.

He owes his ability to heal relationships and help his community to his faith, he said.

“I call it my gift and my curse right. I call it my gift and curse because it’s a gift because it changed my life but it’s a curse because not too many people know about it,” he said. “If I learned something and it benefits me and it uplifts me, it’s sort of like my obligation to bring it back to the community, uplift them.

“And the same thing with the material things that we get in life. If I was to get money and it benefits me, I should be able to do the same thing for my community and this has been the foundation for my life.”

Making a difference

After serving 12 years in prison, Myers moved to Macon in 2016 and started working at the Thirsty Turtle. He noticed Macon was divided by race, but there were individual circles within those communities as well.

“Because of the division, you don’t really see no work being done for the betterment of the whole. You might see individuals that prospered individually but collectively, because we’re not working together, don’t nobody really care about the collective,” Myers said.

After living in Macon a few years and trying to organize community events, Myers, the founder of Equality Enterprises, started working with the founders of Fathers Among Men and Project 32 to create events focused around art, education and culture.

“When I first met these guys, they had the same ideas that I had and were doing the same things that I was doing in the community, and we said ‘Why reinvent the wheel?’” Myers said. “We had a changing point in our lives that caused a reformation so that’s what caused the synergy that you see today.”

Derek James, founder of Gifted Geniuses, Inc., said working with Myers is a blessing because they get to discuss their ideas and work together to find common ground.

“It’s just great to have him as a brother. He pushes me for greater,” he said. “He showed me how to unify, and our people see us work together.”

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, it forced the group to digitize all of their events and allowed them to continue their work.

Myers is planning to host his third annual Excellence Awards on Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. at Spark Macon, and the organizations partner to create community events, including 28 Days of Impact throughout February.

“I think it’s so important because first of all we need to see positivity. We’re in a world where negativity is promoted, and it’s always seen and we get so consumed by it, and then we don’t realize that we are what we see. So, I try to create positive things in my environments,” Myers said. “I once destroyed. Now I’m trying to build.”