LOS ANGELES — Ron Roberson is today a picture of success. He is a news anchor for CNN Headline Local News, has his own production company, and is a Christian Minister with his own congregation in the city of Montebello.
Roberson came from a most humble and tortured beginning. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, he lacked a loving atmosphere at home during his childhood. What he received instead was an environment of fear and abuse from an alcoholic father who tortured him.
While searching for a sense of family through joining various groups, he ended his journey a completely lost and homeless person on skid row where he went to die.
"This is where I found the true and living God, as I was prepared to jump from the seventh floor window of the Frontier Hotel. God spoke to me and said, 'You've tried everything, now try me.'" Today, God has given Roberson a burden for the hurting, homeless, hungry and the youth.
We continue our interview with him in the second of four parts.
ET : Ron, you sound very coherent and logical and it is pretty amazing considering the severity of your drug addiction to the point of considering death as your only option.
RR : Absolutely, that was my last hurrah, when the drugs came in. It was alright as long as I was smoking marijuana and that kind of stuff, I was fine, but when the crack cocaine thing hit, that's a tough drug brother, and that took me all the way down to the bottom.
I hate to say it like this, but it was actually a good thing. Because when I got to the bottom, I was able to find myself, and realize it had to be something better than what I was doing or living.
ET : Is there any advice you can give to anyone having problems with drugs?
RR : I've got tons of advice after all that I have been through. I have a generic version of my testimony, something derived from my Christian roots. One of the first things you need to do is to take a really good look at yourself and realize that you're better than that.
A writer once said that there is a way that seems right to a person, but the end thereof is the way of death. Sometimes we think we know what we are doing and we've got control over what we are doing. But in the end, it becomes our demise.
So I think everyone should seek something bigger than they are, a higher power, or something that they can relate to that satisfies the inner man. I think a lot of people take care of the outside man or the fleshly man, or the fleshy desires, but they do not deal with their inner person.
It wasn't until after I got in contact with my inner me, the source of who I am, the real me, the person who is the real me, that I was able to do anything with myself. I had to bring my flesh into subjection.
You are not going to tell me to get up and chase this drug everyday. You're not going to have me lying to anyone else, or stealing from anyone else. I am taking control over me, and I don't want to do this anymore. So I never had a 12-step program or anything, I just took one step. It was a Christianity thing for me and I quit cold turkey.
ET : You had to hit bottom to come to this realization. Why do you think it is so difficult to reach this understanding without having to hit bottom?
RR : Well, you know it is not just rock cocaine.
I do a lot of ride-a-longs with the Sheriff Department and its kind of nice to ride along in the front seat and not in the back seat as in the past.
We have been doing stories on methamphetamine and all that stuff, many of these drugs are very addictive, not only physically, but psychologically. I just had to draw from everything positive that I knew of.
My heroes back in the day were like pimps; like Iceberg, Slim, and guys like that with the nice cars. They had prestige and had all the girls and that kind of stuff, but even at a young age I knew that was not right.
I think there is something in everybody that let's you know what's right and what's wrong. But that drug has such a psychological hold on people, and I am talking about methamphetamines, rock cocaine, and that type of thing. It is very difficult for a lot of people to know the difference and to deal with the difference and unless you've got people around you that are able to help you.
I met a lot of friends in my days, and there were people, there was one brother that came to me and snatched me around the collar and said, "Man you have to snap out of this, you cannot continue to live like this, you are better than this." This worked for a couple of days, and I went back and used again.
Before I got totally clean, I quit maybe about 50 or 60 times. This was the last one, I'm not going there anymore. But some never get there, some die before they get a chance to hit that rock bottom.
With me I needed to get control over everything that encompassed me and especially my inner person, and that I found through Christianity. But it didn't have to be there, you can find it through other things, family, friends, a higher power, whatever you believe in, you know?
ET : Are there others who have experienced this type of 180-degree turnaround?
RR : Yeah, if you are weak minded, it is not going to happen for you, if you don't have anybody else to mentor you back.
That's why it is so important I go back now even to downtown and minister downtown. We do feedings, I speak, and I actually teach television production. As you know now, that is my line of work, and I go back and teach production to some of the guys that are still down there in the rescue mission.
All they need to do is see somebody that has gone through what they've gone through, not to preach a whole lot of Jesus and all that kind of stuff, just live a good life that others might want to model themselves after.
And so it has been my work down there where I have seen some guys speak up and say you know what man, I am going to make a change, if it happened for you, it can happen for me.
Even with me working with CNN Headline News, I don't bite my tongue about where I have come from. You would think that would be a deterrent from a lot of people hiring me, but they embraced me because now I am kind of like their showpiece. Look at what we've done, we have a guy here that has been through unreasonable odds, and we decided to hire him, and so they've joined right in there with me.
ET : You had mentioned your work in the heart of Mexico. Can you talk about where you went and your work?
RR : I don't know what it is, I have never been to Africa, and I am an African-American brother. I have no desire to go for some reason, but I was introduced to a place in Guadalajara called Talpa.
It is nestled up in the mountains, down in a little valley, about 3½ to 4 hours outside of Guadalajara. I guess I fell in love with Mexico because the Mexican people fell in love with me.
When I was there I was the only African-American person in our group. Talpa is the sister city for the city of Lynwood. I used to do all their media work, I was the liaison between the city and the cable company, it was Continental at the time, and so my job was to cover all the different cities that had governmental access.
So, when they traveled to Talpa I would go with them. Or to Atlanta or Sacramento, I would go with them. I went to Talpa with them and just fell in love with the place, the people used to fight over me.
You talk about family, and a guy looking for family. Of course I embrace people that embrace me and love me, and I was somebody in Talpa, they made me a celebrity. I was a portador [carrier] for our Lady of Talpa. Me, being a Christian brother, you wouldn't think that I would have anything to do with carrying the statue of Our Lady of Talpa.
People in a lifetime would not have that honor, but they allowed me to have that honor. In Talpa I was a celebrity. I mean people would fight over me to see whose house I would stay in. I never spent a dime in Talpa, everything I wanted someone would just get for me.
They specialized in chiclets [gum] there, shoes, and flowers and that kind of stuff. And even as a Christian brother, I learned to enjoy a nice, warm cup of Ronpope [eggnog]. Just great people, and so through that, I fell in love with Mexico.
So I have traveled to Zacatecas, Tepetongo, Guanajuato. I am on my way at the end of the year to Veracruz. I am doing a documentary on Negro (Spanish pronunciation) Mexico, where all the slaves jumped ship there. And there are generations of African-Americans there, so I am doing that story for Turning Point magazine. I just love it. I love the Mexican people.
I am currently taking a Spanish class, and my congregation is multicultural, and that is amazing that the good Lord would allow this to happen to me considering my militant background. To me, Cancun and those places are not really Mexico. I like going into the heart of the people.
Like you say, they have no prejudice and nothing, these are loving, God loving people man, and all I was looking for was love.
I don't know what color it comes in or what it looks like, or how it is dressed, Love has no color brother, it is the same in every language, and that is where I found it.
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