Aqeela Sherrills has traveled the world brokering peace, but he is best known for creating the 1992 peace agreement between longtime Los Angeles gang rivals, the Bloods and the Crips. Sherrills’s inspiration came from the loss of 13 friends to gang violence.

This encouraged him to lay the groundwork for peace in his neighborhood. Within 10 years he had worked on the Amer-I-Can Project with former football legend Jim Brown, and established the former Community Self Determination Institute (CSDI), an agency dedicated to the transformation of his community. Between 1999 and 2006, CSDI managed over $3 million in contracts with the city and county of Los Angeles and the state of California.