Dashaun Jiwe Morris

Dashaun "Jiwe" Morris is from Newark, New Jersey. Coming from a troubled home, a young Jiwe was recruited to join the Bloods before he was even twelve years old. By the time he was eleven, Jiwe had already participated in his first drive by shooting. Perhaps it was his talent for football that contributed to saving his life. A star athlete in high school, Jiwe was recruited to attend Delaware State University on a full athletic scholarship. But while he continued to excel on the field, his involvement with the Bloods would ultimately take a turn for the worse as Jiwe proceeded largely unabated down a path that would subsequently lead to his indictment for attempted murder. Incarcerated and faced with the prospect of raising his daughter from behind bars, Jiwe began to look deep within himself for answers that would explain his predicament. What began as a soul searching exercise would later turn into a gripping account of street life through the eyes of a full blown gang banger. In April of 2008 Jiwe's first book, War Of The Bloods In My Veins, was published by Scribner, a division of famed publishing house Simon & Schuster. Today Jiwe is a free man and uses his influence and credibility in the streets to uplift at-risk youth across America. Traveling to high schools, colleges and juvenile detention facilities, the man who once embraced a lifestyle that promoted violence now spends his time urging adolescents to fight poverty through education and earn for bigger and greater rewards outside the confines of dilapidated neighborhoods and broken homes.