In 1951 when Hurricane Charlie ravished Jamaica, Baxter Sinclair was one of the many casualties whose family was forced to split up and migrate from their home in Chudleigh, Manchester, to Kingston in search of better opportunities.

He was 14 at the time, fourth in a line of 10 children for his mother, Ethlyn, who had to leave him behind with an aunt. But aunt Linda, who had six children of her own, wasn’t able to keep him for more than a few months.

Feeling abandoned, hurt and rebellious, the young Baxter took off for Kingston – Parry Road – where he found his mother. But there wasn’t much she could do for him as she was busy trying to raise six of his younger siblings.

So he took off again, this time with his peers, most of whom hung out on the streets of downtown Kingston.

“They became my brothers, we multiplied in numbers and became each other’s protector and support for food,” Sinclair recalled. “When one cooked, all would eat. Gold Street seaside and the warm water of the pumping station in the sea provided a daily bath. We made our living washing cars and diving around ships in the port for coins. In an adjacent vacant lot, a makeshift cardboard tent was our shelter.”

It was a perilously rough life.

“The environment was similar to that which produced many of the young men and women caught up in this web of gang banging,” he told the Sunday Observer. “Luckily, I was one of the few who managed to escape and eventually become a productive member of society. Today, others aren’t so lucky.

They inherit the gangster syndrome and begin to chalk up prison records and take up the gun. Eventually, killing becomes the norm. Society feels their anger and suffering and forms the perception that they don’t want to be rehabilitated, that they’ve made up their minds to live fast and die young.”

After three years on the streets, Sinclair began to learn welding from his peers.

“Bobby, Howard Watkins, Bull and Cracky; they became my teachers, and I became very proficient,” he said. This enabled him to survive years later when he migrated to the racist America of the early 1960s. With the help of Watkins in particular, he eventually settled in North Carolina with his wife and daughter.

“I was a competent pipeline welder but could not find work as a welder. I therefore took truck driving, low paying jobs,” he said.

Soon, he learnt that trade unions could help him to get a job that made financial sense, so he applied for membership in the Pipe Fitters Local 687 trade union, which, unknown to him, was dominated by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

“All hell broke loose, but .with help from civil rights organisations, the NAACP and the federal government, I was allowed to take the qualifying test of pipeline welding and undisputedly passed,” he said. “I became the first minority person to hold membership in the pipe fitters union in the south.”

However, constant aggression from the KKK made life very difficult for him.

“I caught a Klan member urinating in my lunch pail. He threw the first punch and all the ghetto anger in me broke loose,” said Sinclair. “Blacks on the project came to my defence, the NAACP intervened…”.

The incident resulted in Sinclair receiving death threats, which triggered the family’s move to Los Angeles.

“I was given a transfer in 1967, but I soon realised that racism was also in the LA Pipe Trade Union,” he said.

Frustrated and angry, he began to seek his own equity by ensuring that the union’s dispatch officers knew he carried a colt 45 semi-automatic pistol. But it was a battle he couldn’t win.

“Two members of the union’s goon squad told me that a business agent wanted to talk to me and that if I refused, the county sheriff would take my pistol. Not being willing to commit suicide, I went. The agent promised me fair treatment if I would put the gun away,” Sinclair said.

Eventually, Sinclair’s reputation grew, as more opportunities to prove his skill as a downhill pipeline welder came his way.

“I became one of the agent’s boys and was subsequently sent on jobs as a union shop steward,” he explained.

In 1973, he was sent to Alaska on a pipeline project. However, Klansmen from North Carolina caused friction again.

Two weeks later, the contractor warned him that the KKK was plotting his demise. No one wanted the bad publicity, so the contractor offered him a year’s pay in return for his resignation.

“I took it without hesitation and went back to LA,” said Sinclair.

With the help of political intervention aimed at promoting equal procurement opportunities for minorities, Sinclair got the chance to establish Sinclair Corporation, a company that quickly gained a reputation as one of the best in the business of constructing natural gas pipelines. Sensing opportunity, he studied the state building codes night and day. Additionally, he went to Compton College three nights per week studying principles of accounting.

“Upon the first try I passed the State licences and with an investment of $2,500 incorporated Sinclair Corporation,” he told the Sunday Observer.

With help from his insurance agent, he gained a political foothold by making a donation to a Republican candidate who won by a landslide.

“I became a valuable asset and friend to the candidate and this helped to stop the good old boys club which tried to devise every possible means of keeping me down,” he said.

The rest is history. Sinclair rose to the top of his trade, earning over US$12 million annually. This put him in a position to pay decent wages to many disillusioned young gangsters and, by extension, stem the crime wave that was literally drowning Californians.

At one point he had employed more than 32 members of LA’s most notorious gangs, among them the Cripps, Bloods, and Rolling 60s, all of whom told journalists how Sinclair’s help had allowed them to trade in a life of crime for the fulfilment of a lucrative job.

The significance of his contribution made him a celebrity among several state agencies and legislators who acknowledged his contribution through a number of citations, appointments and attempts to provide a supportive legal framework to encourage businesses to follow Sinclair’s lead by employing gangsters.

On February 5, 1986, then US president Ronald Reagan announced his intention to appoint Sinclair United States representative to the International Advisory Commission for the Caribbean Region.

But Sinclair, citing the complicated politics of the day, declined the appointment.

Eventually, Sinclair filed for bankruptcy and returned to Jamaica in 1996. However, he’s confident that the effort through which he revolutionised several crime-infested communities years ago can be revived to the benefit of contemporary Jamaica.

roxboroughp@jamaicaobserver.com

Baxter’s dream

. We need to begin addressing young men and women leaving high school.

. Resources must be found to implement a draft for them to serve at least two years in the military to learn discipline and a career or a trade. This would rule out crime and gang membership as an option for them.

. Penal reform would also have to be high on the agenda as the current warehousing of so-called criminals only makes them bitter and more determined to victimise the community on leaving prison.

. There is no better rehabilitation than good, old fashioned hard work and sweat while being incarcerated. Proper supervision of prisoners, credit given for time served, and professional organised work programmes will make positive changes in prisoners.

There are hospitals, schools, highways and roads that need maintenance and repairs. Farming, too, needs a serious labour boost.