TRU Colors: Crips, Bloods, Black Disciples and Gangster Disciples Brew Together for Change

Beer is an instrument of social change. When used judiciously, it becomes a bridge between surface and depth, allowing us to reveal more of ourselves to others, and connect where we may have otherwise clashed. TRU Colors Brewing embodies this ideal like no other.

What is TRU Colors?

Founded in Wilmington, North Carolina in 2018, TRU Colors is a craft brewery run by rival gang members from the Bloods, Crips, Black Disciples (BD’s) and Gangster Disciples (GD’s). In its own words, a “large for-profit brewery with a tightly integrated social mission – stop street violence and unite communities across America.”

At first glance, it seems like a recipe for disaster. Either that, or the most perfectly poetic undertaking imaginable. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.

Regardless, such face value interpretations are exactly what TRU Colors is working to transcend. So, before any judgment is made, let’s see if we can move past artificial barriers and find TRU Colors’ true nature.

The Founder

“In a nation of millions and a world of billions, the individual is still the first and basic agent of change.”
– LBJ

It took a dark moment to bring TRU Colors to light. George Taylor (above), tech entrepreneur and former chairman of Untappd, founded TRU Colors in 2018 after a teen was murdered near his Wilmington office. The proximity of the shooting moved Taylor to ask what motivated someone to kill in cold blood, so he contacted the district attorney to set up a meeting with local gang leaders to seek answers.

“And that kicked off three years of me being around gangs, first here in our city, then across our state, and then across the country,” Taylor said in a media release. “What I found was that violence really is driven by economic issues. And so it needed some sort of an economic solution.”

Given his background, Taylor settled on the idea of opening a brewery.

“If you want to unite people, especially if they're rivals, it all starts with that very first – often awkward and uncomfortable – conversation. Having a beer there and drinking a beer together helps ease a little bit of that tension,” Taylor said.

The concept is not without its skeptics. Some feel that Taylor should stick to the boardroom, or that he is leveraging a volatile environment for his personal gain. Then again, brewing is a volatile process, requiring the successful management of volatile compounds. Change doesn’t happen overnight.

Brewers of Change

As TRU Colors points out, gangs originally arose as an answer to fundamental needs. These include “protection, structure, purpose, belonging and economic opportunity in communities where these things were severely lacking.”

“Despite the media and public perception of gangs, there is a new generation of gang members that is committed to changing that negative image.” This means advocating for peace and unity in place of competition and violence.

In chemistry, a solution denotes a “homogeneous mixture composed of two or more substances.” Malt and hops is a solution that results in beer. Why couldn’t Bloods and Crips come together for a similar solution?

A Recipe for Success

The initial step for going from the “block to the boardroom” involves an intense eight-week onboarding program titled DISRUPT-U. The curriculum teaches four core life skills – housing, transportation, finance and relationships, in order to set the stage for harmonious work to begin.

Not all make it through, but for those who stick it out, next comes entrepreneurial skills, with a focus on the individual. Rather than focusing immediately on “boardroom skills” such as market disruption, this personal development phase intends to help rebuild a person from the bottom up, allowing their personal growth to filter into the community at large. As TRU Colors employees begin to see their impact on the community, they see how street smarts can translate to business savvy.

During the training program, employees earn a salary of $30,000 annually with full healthcare, which increases to $35,000 after DISRUPT-U, and at least $37,000 after another 90 days as an intern, with further potential for stock options.

While many businesses seek reformed gang members for hire, few seek active members and aim to reform them while they remain active.

“They stay active,” said Khalilah Olokunola, TRU Colors’ chief people officer. “Not because we want them to be gang members for the rest of their lives, but because we want to proliferate positive change from within current gang structures, and the best way to do that is through current members.”

Membership Has Its Privileges

Again, some may find the situation paradoxical. However, coming out of an intense boot camp designed to reinforce life skills, personal values, self-worth and an entrepreneurial mindset, on top of a steady wage with health care, and a work environment decked out with a recording studio, daycare and gym, gang life might start to look very different. And those active members might be actively helping other members rebuild their lives, as well.

There are plenty of success stories to share. Among them are a gang member incarcerated for a decade, who upon release worked as an HR specialist at TRU Colors and is now the director of health and wellness for the brewery.

Another employee spent three years in federal prison before starting at TRU, going on to gain a digital marketing specialty and leading that department. There’s also a gang member who spent two years in prison and went on to run TRU Colors’ community ambassador program, designed to help build relationships with members of the community on a grassroots level.

The Trials

Of course, no story is complete without tragedy, and for TRU Colors, it struck hard. First, in 2019, a friend of many TRU Colors employees was killed in a gang-related incident, leading many to question the efficacy of the program. Then, in July of 2021, a gang-related shooting wounded one and killed two at the home of Taylor’s son, the company’s COO, including longtime TRU Colors leader Kory Tyson. The incident was a significant setback for operations, and led to severe public scrutiny, with many voicing their doubt of the company’s efficacy and intentions. Nevertheless, Taylor and TRU Colors stuck to their guns and stayed the course.

Despite years of slow movement, educating employees from the ground up, along with tragedy and the pandemic striking, TRU Colors has brought their beer to market.

The Beer

“The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

TRU Colors focuses its energy on its flagship, TRU Light, a 4.2% ABV, 95-calorie light lager described as “crisp and crushable” with notes of baked bread and caramel sweetness from its Two-Row malt combination, tempered by clean bittering from a blend of noble hops that lend a “delicate fruity aroma.”

Currently available in more than 800 on- and off-premises North Carolina locations, the brewery is positioned for national growth. Its 54,000 square-foot facility has capacity for 1.4 million cases annually, and inked a strategic partnership with Molson Coors in April of 2021, overseen by its craft arm 10th and Blake.

“We knew we wanted to scale TRU Colors into a national brand really quickly, said Taylor in a statement. “And clearly, in order to do that, we would have to partner with someone that was significantly larger. We chose Molson Coors because we felt that they understood what we were doing.”

Immediate plans are to expand to Virginia and D.C in 2022 and distribute across all 50 states by 2023.

On that front, just this week PNC Bank announced a $9.25 million investment into the brewery. The financing is part of PNC Bank’s Community Benefits Plan, “which will provide loans, investments, and other financial support to bolster economic opportunity for low- and moderate-income people and neighborhoods, as well as people and communities of color.”

A Vibrant Future

“One faces the future with one’s past.”
– Pearl S. Buck

During the American Revolution, the epicenter of spirited dialogue was the tavern, as evidenced by the bar tab rung up by the framers just days before they signed the Constitution into law, which amounted to around $15,400 in 21st century dollars.

For TRU Colors, their brewery is the hub around which the wheel of cultural revolution turns. More than just a production facility, it is a community center and safe space. “A creator’s playground and recording studio,” and a “university for learning life skills.”

America is born of turbulence, and though it has a checkered past, its future remains to be written.

Some see TRU Colors as a story of everything wrong with America today – corporate profiteering while enabling members of society’s underbelly. But for those willing to look beyond a lens of color and identity – Red vs. Blue, Black and White – TRU Colors embodies a dream that is vivid and a future that is bright.

All Photos Courtesy TRU Colors