If you don’t know Redge Green, then you’ve never seen the movie, Boyz N Da Hood, and you definitely aren’t old school!  He was one of the homeboys that ran with Doughboy (Ice Cube) and Rickey (Morris Chestnut) in the film. The character’s name was “Chris” whom was paralyzed in the movie, but many didn’t know that he is actually a paraplegic.

Redge Green is the first African American paraplegic SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild) actor and the first in the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) because he is a recording artist as well.

In our exclusive interview with Redge, we found that he’s a fighter, a warrior, and funny as hell! He’s very animated and a pleasure to interview. Take a look at Part 1 of our interview with Redge where he talks about being shot at the age of 6, and how his father committed suicide within 48 hours of being shot.

Getting shot at 6 years old…I could not imagine! That had to have been devastating and did you know the person who used you as a shield?

I didn’t know him personally, my Grandparents did. They were my Grandparents’ neighbors. They lived right next door to my Grandmother’s house and we were passing their house skating, uh, riding bikes and things. One lived across the street from my Grandmother and these two older men began fighting, I think they were playing cards or something, got into an argument, had been drinking that day and uh, got into a major fight you know. One got hit…we saw when he got hit in the mouth and that was pretty interesting to us because the closest thing we ever saw to anything happening like that was cartoons. So we were like ‘Oh my God, who’s gon’ break-up these adults?’ And when he said I’m going get my gun, we just started running and everybody said ‘get outta here.’ He looked up the sidewalk and came to lift me up and I thought he (the neighbor who used him as a shield) was coming to get me, and I begin to yell because he wouldn’t let me go and behold the man came out and stopped in the middle of the street and pulled the trigger. It hit my right shoulder, ricocheted off my collar bone and hit my spinal cord and paralyzed my legs.

How did you deal with that?

I almost died, I lost most of my blood laying there waiting for the ambulance to come and pick me up. And so for me to get shot on that 12th of February and then within 48 hours my Father would commit suicide. On the morning of the 14th he’d come back in town from visiting his biological dad at the time. But I did not know my Father had passed away until about maybe almost a month, while I was still in the hospital and my Mother brought some pictures with my uncle…and she said “Baby I got good news and some bad news.” Good news; she brought me some toys.  Bad news; they brought the doctors in and I wondered why were all of these people were in my room and she said “Baby you lost your father.”  That’s how they told me my father had passed away.

Did you ever feel any type of resentment toward him (Father) for leaving you when you needed him the most?

So I think I had a bigger question to God, ‘Why me?, Why my Father and the fact that he died. We were told that he had died of a heart attack, and for years until people started to say “boy your dad was too young to have a heart attack at 26, 27 years old.” [When] I got older my questions changed.  I was in fear (of the man who shot me), more than anything because it was [like] ‘Why did he shoot me?’ I was glad that i was still alive, knowing that my father was gone and I knew a lot of other people who passed away. So death was a sting to my side. So I grew up with a lot of fear and a lot of why’s.

When I grew older and found how my dad passed away and all of the different pressures he dealt with. To be 26 years old and have five kids, two with disabilities, one with one of her eyes missing, that was a lot back in those days.

Over the years I’ve gained back a lot of my feeling [in my legs] and I still believe that maybe one day, who knows? Maybe I’ll be like that man in the Bible who they say was blind for 38 years and then boom he could see (LOL)!

During the month that you were in the hospital and didn’t know that your father had passed, were you wondering why he hadn’t come to visit you?

Yeah I was asking that all the time: ‘Where is dad?’ Why hasn’t he come to see me?’ But I knew that he had gone out of town and as a kid you’re not gauging Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday when you’ve got machines hooked all up to you.  So when I kept asking [where my dad was] and my Mother would say “Baby, you know, he’s gonna be here soon.” And of course that wasn’t true, but he was there in a different way. We were at the same hospital- upstairs is me in the ICU and downstairs they pronounced my father [had] passed away.

“I always say it’s three stages- it’s tragedy, strategy from God and then you have victory, and so, I’ve been living in victory”.

Check back the full interview below, and next week we will share part 2 of our interview with Redge Green as he talks about his the discrimination against paraplegic actors in Hollywood, on working with Stevie Wonder, and what he’s doing now to educate folks on paraplegics or physically challenged individuals. If you’d like to send Redge a personal shout out, you can send him an email at justredge@gmail.com. He’d love to hear from you.