The Tragic Forgotten Tale That Inspired Tupac’s “Brenda’s Got A Baby”

TrendingJuly 11, 2022

Living Life Handicapped

One of those issues was teenage pregnancies. The way this situation was handled showed that young women growing up in the ghettos were at risk of falling prey to it. The outcome of getting pregnant at a young age was brutal, conditions like that lead to the teen not being able to properly integrate into society.

Shakur wrote a song about this incident to highlight how these young women faced odds that limited them like a low chance of finishing their education or participating in the workforce. The economic stress that came from living under bad conditions would only get exacerbated after adding a newborn baby into the mix.

A Swift response

A police sergeant was the first on-scene to respond to a call from a couple of maintenance workers who tipped his department off about a baby’s cries coming from a compactor. It was 9:45 in the morning, and the officer didn’t expect to find himself spending it diving through trash chutes. Be that as it may, Brooklyn’s own Phillip Insardi decided to become a hero and made a dive-in for the child hoping to find it.

At first, he was skeptical. He hadn’t heard any of the cries himself so he wasn’t sure. Eventually, after a bit of digging and shining his torch inside, the officer spotted little feet that were sticking out from the rest of the trash.

A Heroic Recovery

Insardi eventually dared to slide inside the chute, hoping to retrieve the child before the machine would eventually turn on. The newborn was lying there, quietly, and soon upon retrieval seemed to be relatively unharmed. It was a miracle, considering how steep the fall was from the opening.

The infant was lying there, abandoned on a pile of trash, ready to meet its grim fate but the officer made sure that wouldn’t happen and luckily showed up right on time. It was cold, so the officer wrapped the baby in his shirt. The baby was loaded onto an ambulance and sent to Brookdale Hospital for immediate treatment.

Finding The Guilty Party

The infant had no name, and authorities chose to keep it that way in their official statement for the kid’s safety. They treated them for Hypothermia and luckily the baby survived the ordeal. They examined the body for any injuries but declared the 6-pound 10-ounce baby was officially unharmed. Somehow, the kid managed to land safely and was found lying under some newspapers.

The police decided it was time to approach the person who did this, and the investigators surveyed the locals. Eventually, they ended up visiting a six-story building on New Lots Avenue in East New York, on the fourth floor they found a mother who was claiming her 12-year-old daughter had just recently given birth.

Suspicions Emerge

Gladys Perry told the police that her daughter might be the one responsible for the baby they found, upon further probing she shared information about her daughter’s whereabouts and the police eventually came knocking at her classroom door. It was a normal day at Thelma J. Hamilton Junior High School until suddenly a child was asked to exit the classroom for a line of extensive questioning.

Perry denied it at first, hoping not to face the repercussions of her actions but unfortunately for her, she got forced into going to Brookdale Hospital with them. After a medical examination, it was determined that she was related to the child in some way.

Forcing The Truth Out

That wasn’t all, she had just recently given birth and the doctors found out immediately. There was no use hiding it anymore, the girl started to confess. She shared that she was the one responsible for throwing the baby down the trash chute, but investigators wanted more. She wouldn’t share any details, however, claiming she had no idea who the father was. She denied that it was even her baby.

She even denied having any personal relationships with anyone, there just weren’t any leads. The investigators shared with the public that she gave birth around 7 A.M that day and then went on to do what she did.

Who’s Accountable?

It was hard for the authorities to determine whether she should face any charges for her actions. They tried questioning the 12-year-old’s mother Mrs. Perry about her whereabouts. She shared that she had been out all day, and she usually wasn’t home for most of the night. At first, the investigators felt that it was unclear whether Mrs.Perry was the teen’s mother.

Mrs. Perry had three kids, two sons, and one daughter. They lived in a rather beat-down part of town, Stone Avenue. The streets weren’t very clean, the area had tons of empty lots, and the sidewalks were decaying. It wasn’t the best place to raise children.

A Child’s Suffering

The officers decided not to press any charges against Mrs. Perry nor the little teenage girl who abandoned her baby. The nurses at Brookdale shared with the New York Times that they chose a name for the infant, and started calling him Trevor. Eventually, he’d go on to live with a foster family after he recovered.

Trevor’s struggles aren’t something new, many children around the world suffer from being born under horrid conditions. His mother was a child herself, who couldn’t be held accountable for what happened to both of them. Teenage pregnancies often lead to ruined lives.

New Details Emerge

On March 29, 1991, more details emerged regarding the case. It turned out that the 12-year-old New York City girl was not living with her mother. Her parents had died at the age of four and she had to live with her aunt. A fire took them both away from her. The neighbors stated Mrs. Perry, was visibly emotionally unstable.

They further added that the children weren’t any strangers to illegal substances or alcohol, they saw those things go into the house. Investigators arrested the girl’s cousin, a 21-year-old man who decided to attempt to take his own life but ultimately failed to do so.

Finally, A Culprit

After being interrogated, Clarence Perry confessed to abusing a minor and was charged for it under the full extent of the law. He also admitted to being the father of the infant, Trevor. Perry made a scene on the neighbor’s roof, claiming his family had abandoned him The story was rather gruesome, enough to inspire Tupac Shakur to write a song about it.

The 12-year-old girl was a slow learner, she was only in the sixth grade when it all happened to her. She was confused and groomed by her cousin and adoptive brother. The news was devastating, nobody at her school could tell anything had happened to her.

A Hidden Accomplice

The girl told her friends and teachers at school that she wasn’t feeling well. The neighbors who noticed her going to school saw her clutching her stomach at the time. She seemed to be in pain and had some trouble walking. She told investigators that her friend Heidi was also aware of her infant’s birth.

Heidi was a good friend, she was present during the delivery and used to walk to school with her 12-year-old friend every morning. They both lived in the same complex but had their own separate families and apartments. She didn’t show up the day after investigators questioned the unnamed girl.

Days of Horror

Investigators soon found out the minor fell victim to constant attempts at assault, at the hands of her cousin. Practically twice, every time the aunt was away from home. The neighbors shared how the little girl barely had any interaction with the outside world beyond attending her class at her school.

She didn’t have any healthy role models to look up to. Her aunt was unstable and had been notorious for a prior nervous breakdown, the little girl grew up surrounded by narcotics and illegal substances. The area she lived in was notorious for its decay, gang violence, and feuding dealers.

A Deadbeat’s End

Clarence Perry was not an upstanding citizen, his neighbors claimed he stood at the gate of the complex as if he were a guard or someone looking to sell something on the street. His family chose to go against him and he felt hopeless after it and decided to end his life. He was apprehended however and charged.

Be that as it may, the 12-year-old girl was determined to have not been capable of disposing of the baby in the trash chute herself. She was deemed too weak to consider her being responsible for such an act, she shared that she didn’t part with the baby until dawn.

Things Can’t Be Normal Again

Authorities speculated Perry or some other family member was the true culprit. The 12-year-old asked them for her baby back but unfortunately, they had to give Trevor away to be taken care of by a foster family. They argued someone in her position would not be ready for the hardships that come with parenthood.

By the end of it, they found out even Clarence was unaware of the little girl’s pregnancy, and Mrs. Perry was astonished by the news. She didn’t expect the child to give birth to a full-blown infant. The authorities concluded the investigation soon after the culprit was arrested.

An Endless Cycle

Living in the ghettos was hard, and the institutional segregation of Black people confined them to reside in places that were far from savory. Several African-American communities faced prejudice and circumstances that limited them from their growth and reaching their potential. The system didn’t work for them, opportunities were limited and people were angsty and fed up. Violence and pain were common fixtures, poverty made people do horrible things.

Shakur saw all of that and felt the pain of it all. Lived through the struggle and chose to shine a light on these issues. He wasn’t afraid of speaking his truth, he wanted to see his people live better lives. He wanted to bring a real change to his community.

Living Life Handicapped

A Voice For The Voiceless

Those young women had every right to experience a normal life like any other child but unfortunately for them, they grew up in an area and under conditions that already decided their fate for them. The women had no say in how they could dictate their lives and would eventually fall prey to the same toxic system that raised them.

Shakur’s song “Becca Had A Baby,” tells us a story about a young girl experiencing the negative effects of teenage pregnancy, and the music video shows us the life she will lead after the incident. The song highlights how disconnected people are from the victims themselves.

Criticizing Taboos

People living in the ghettos and the projects weren’t very happy with their living conditions, and their apathy for each other would splinter the bond and civility needed to uphold a functioning community. Families were part of a broken system and essentially those values decayed over time.

A lack of empathy and knowledge was what was holding people back, and Shakur sensed that he needed to latch onto the 12-year-old girl’s story after reading it in a newspaper to spread some much-needed awareness. The girl’s neighbors commented on how they barely even realized she was pregnant, they didn’t even see her.

Spreading Awareness

The opening lyrics to “Brenda’s Got A Baby” paint us a clear picture, of people mocking a child they don’t even know for simply being at the mercy of her environment. Brenda wasn’t strong enough to change things around her, she wasn’t even old enough to write her name right but instead of helping her, she finds the community mocking her for falling prey to her surroundings.

Community participation and support are important for any individual, especially a child who’s gone through an ordeal like child-birth but unfortunately, instead of being empowered and picked up, she faced undeserved belittlement and alienation.

The Sign of The Times

Things just weren’t easy for people of color back during the 90s. Shakur saw the grime and dirt and used his lyrical talent to put a spotlight on the neglect people were put through. The lack of social welfare allotted to struggling young mothers living in the ghettos was barely enough for them to scrape by. Women had to endure hardships because of their financial situation.

The song featured Brenda, a teenager going through life confused and scared. Her family was stuck dealing with poverty, and hence lacked the necessary education and tools to help her. Brenda’s parents neglected her during her childhood, she felt vulnerable and had no one to turn to.

It Gets Worse

The song gets darker, as we’re introduced to another character who comes into Brenda’s life, her cousin. Groomed and used by her blood, the little girl thought he was going to be standing by her through the ordeal but he abandoned their relationship without remorse.

This was a familiar story for most kids growing up in the ghettos. According to the CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Series 21, No. 53, “The most recent phase of rapid annual increases began in 1978 and continued through 1991. During these 13 years, the nonmarital birth rate for teens jumped 80 percent, to 44.8 per 1,000. The rate declined slightly in 1992 to 44.6.”