Former Fayetteville man releases movie about his life on Amazon
While serving 17 years on a life sentence, a former Fayetteville man found his love for the arts in writing. Now he's sharing his story in film.
Mike Rae Anderson, a Seventy-First High School alum, released his independent film "A Polished Soul: A Tale of a Fayettenam Vet" on Amazon Prime Video earlier this month. He released a self-published book called A Polished Soul: The Mike Rae Anderson Story" on Amazon in 2014.
Anderson said he hopes his story inspires young people headed toward trouble to turn their lives around.
"It's mainly geared for the youth (to say) that going down the wrong path doesn't have to happen," he said.
Anderson referred to himself as a "Fayettenam Vet" in his movie title as a nod to the city's nickname.
"They called it a warzone in the streets," he said. "In prison, they just say Fayettenam or they say 2-6."
Anderson released the film in Fayetteville at the Omni Cinemas on Sycamore Dairy Road in September.
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Anderson said he lived in a home where he witnessed his father, a Korean War and Vietnam War veteran with PTSD, abuse his mother. After his parents divorced, Anderson said, he watched his mother struggle to make ends meet. He said he wanted to find a way to make things better for him and his brother, which is when he got involved with selling drugs and guns.
In 1991, a few days after his 19th birthday, Anderson was sentenced to life in prison after someone died in an altercation he was involved in. He was originally facing the death penalty but took a plea deal.
While in prison, art kept his mind focused, Anderson said.
"I would write poetry every day or write scripts," he said. "I even put on plays on the inside for the inmate population. I realized that's what I wanted to do but I wanted to tell stories that was worth it."
He said while incarcerated he kept his nose clean and focused on obtaining certifications for nine different vocational trades such as plumping and small engine repair, and obtained two degrees in business management and computer systems technology. He was paroled in 2008.
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Now he aims to become part of the solution since he was part of the problem in his youth.
"Taking somebody's life or even being involved with stuff that had to do with somebody else's life being taken, I contributed to the demise of our community," he said. "So, I wanted to help rebuild our community."
Anderson, who now lives in the Raleigh/Durham area, returns to Fayetteville from time to time to speak at the TRIO Upward Bound Program at Fayetteville State University. The program motivates low-income and first-generation students to go to college.
"One of my biggest goals in life is to become the biggest resource that I can for at-risk youth and people re-entering society," he said.
Staff writer Akira Kyles can be reached at akyles@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville native releases film about his life on Amazon Prime Video
