Little Caesar's Pizza Promoter Changes His Life Around After Being In Gang For 9 Years

He dances while holding a Little Caesar's five-dollar pizza sign shaped like a guitar. Rain or shine Rovelle Brown is on the corner of Lakewood Drive and Bridgeport Way — one of the busiest intersections in the city — wearing a ski mask and dancing to Christian rap on his MP3 player.

“When I go out there my job is to attract customers so I do recycled Michael Jackson moves, old break dancing moves, Krump dancing and I mix it all together,” Brown said.  

Brown, 22, has been working at Little Caesar’s Pizza for a year. He started off making pizza, but the crew leader suggested he try promoting the company and that's been his job ever since.

“A lot of customers come in and say, ‘we saw your guy out there so we decided to get pizza’,” said Aaron Waters, Little Caesar’s Pizza store manager. “He is a good guy and he is definitely very optimistic.”

Brown typically goes and grabs his orange construction vest, put his gloves, sunglasses and ski mask on before heading outside. Brown chooses to cover his face not only for warmth but to hide his identity.

“There are a number of reasons I choose to cover my face,” He said “One of the main reason is because a group called Nation of Islam like to get on my case about being African American and dancing for pennies.”

Also Brown has had glass bottles thrown at him from passing cars, people have shouted racial slurs and a man walking by kicked him in the shin, he said. But there are also those who drive by and honk at him.

“I am an ex-gang member," Brown said. "I don’t care. I have been in a whole lot of worse situations than glass bottles being thrown at me. I could care less about it and there is more incidents that have happened that I can't remember because it is nothing to me.”

Brown was in a gang between the ages of 12 and 21. He was so involved that when his daughter was old enough he was going to bring her into the gang.

“It is rough living the gang life and anybody knows that it is self-destructive,” Brown said. “I was in and out of jail, always in some kind of trouble and I was trying to join the military but they wouldn’t consider me because I had open cases.”

But one day something changed.

Brown was with a few gang members when one of them stumbled upon a bible. The gang member then began quoting scriptures from it. It made Brown begin to think about the way he was living his life. 

“It hit me in the gut that maybe I should apply it (the scriptures) to my life,” he said. “A few weeks later, I told the gang ‘hey y’all I think I am done.’”

He said being brought up in the Christian faith when he was young is what made him walk away from the gang life.

Brown then joined a Christian outreach group called, “God’s Gang.” The group reaches out to youths and young adults living the gang life, Brown said.

“It (the group) is all about cleaning you up,” he said. “They helped me transition from the thug to a man of God and I am having the time of my life preaching to youth.”

Brown said he doesn’t plan to stay at Little Caesar for the rest of life. His goals are to be a fugitive recovery agent and a pastor.

“Rovelle has a great character,” Waters said. “He is a good guy.”