No place touches Quanell X like the corner of Holloway and Roandale.

Two blocks from Paradise, but a lot closer to hell.

"Madness was all over the place - madness, drug addicts, pimps and straight-up killers, all right here," he said, standing recently on the corner in a pinstripe suit.

"The first time I ever saw a man get killed, I was 6 years old hanging on the corner."

Today, nearly 40 years after he started cutting his teeth on the streets of Sunnyside in southeast Houston, the controversial civil rights activist and consultant is as loved as he is despised, as polarizing as he is unifying.

He's risen to national attention by putting the spotlight on cases of alleged police misconduct and corruption, squaring off against the Ku Klux Klan, helping wanted criminals turn themselves in and drawing confessions from child-killers.

But recent allegations have turned the spotlight back onto Quanell himself. Former clients used his own techniques against him - calling a news conference but as yet filing no formal legal challenges - to accuse him of taking their money without representing them as promised.

The criticism, he says, comes with the territory.

"You're always going to have your haters, no matter who you are," he said. "If you really want to know Quanell X, try to get to know me. Come talk to me. Especially white people. I'm nothing like you may think."

Speaking out

Timeline Timeline Local consultant and activist Quanell X stepped into the limelight nearly two decades ago and continues to speak out on civil rights and community issues. Here are some highlights of cases he's handled. In July 2016, Quanell escorted Dante Moore to the Bellaire Police Department as a person of interest in the death of Bellaire officer Anthony Marco Zarate. Zarate crashed his motorcycle while trying to chase a fleeing suspect in a burglary. Moore has been charged with murder in the case and is awaiting trial. In 2011, he drew national attention when he released a video of four Houston police officers beating teenager Chad Holley, who was suspected in a burglary. The four officers were fired and charged criminally. One was acquitted; two pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of official oppression and a fourth was convicted of official oppression. In 2011, he worked with Kevin Smith, who later was convicted of capital murder for the 1996 rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in Chambers County. Smith confessed to Quanell in 2011 and asked for his help in avoiding the death penalty. Prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty, and Smith confessed to law enforcement; Quanell testified in court about their discussions. Smith is now serving a life sentence for capital murder, and is not pleased with the services Quanell provided. "He was very convincing and misleading," Smith said in an October letter from prison. "He wasn't concerned about my situation." In 2008, he worked with Pasadena father Randy Sylvester Sr., who led Quanell through the woods with a police guard to the burned bodies of his young children. Sylvester got a life sentence, but hanged himself in his state prison cell in 2014. In 2006, he helped Eliott Guerrero turn himself in to police over an incident that year in which the man was accused of firing a handgun twice at a police officer before running away. Guerrero is now serving 28 years in prison for aggravated assault of a police officer, but he continues to insist he is innocent. In a letter from prison, he said he is not pleased with Quanell's efforts on his behalf. "Quanell didn't give me the voice that I so desperately needed," he said. "He turned me in then turned his back on me and my family." In 1998, while representing the Nation of Islam as a spokesman, Quanell drew international media attention by promising to go to Jasper in East Texas in the aftermath of the dragging death of James Byrd, a black man who was chained behind a pick-up truck. He vowed to stand up against the Ku Klux Klan and provide patrols to protect black communities at night.

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He's been a drug dealer, political aide, minister, consultant, spokesman for the Nation of Islam and, now, he's a leader of the New Black Panther Party and the New Black Muslims in Houston.

His cellphone includes numbers for rap artists, religious leaders, chiefs of police, politicians, reporters and gangsters.

The 45-year-old is not a lawyer but often finds himself wedged between the police and those who may have given up on the system. He says he has helped more than 50 killers surrender to police without one being harmed.

As early as 1998, he drew international attention by pledging to stand up against the Ku Klux Klan in Jasper in East Texas following the dragging death of a black man there.

In 2008 - in a case that he says haunts him today - he helped a Pasadena father lead police through the woods to the burned bodies of his young children. In 2011, he drew national attention when he released a video of four Houston police officers beating a teenager.

But not everyone praises Quanell's work.

At an October news conference outside the Harris County Criminal Courthouse, four people accused Quanell of not fulfilling agreements to help them. Among those was teacher Veronica Cooper, who said she hired him to help her battle a school district in a labor dispute but got nothing in return.

"He represents himself as being the voice of the underdog," Cooper said. "The voice of the poor people, the downtrodden, the people who have been taken advantage of."

Quanell has said he did nothing wrong but that his lawyer has advised him to not discuss the allegations publicly beyond a statement issued by text message at the time.

"We welcome any member of the human family to reach out to us for help but when you do, please tell us the truth and don't leave out any important facts," according to the statement. "Often, people come to us claiming racism and when we research and investigate the case, we learn that racism has nothing to do with the case. Just because you have retained my office to help you does not mean we will lie for you."

He says he largely makes his living as a criminal justice and public relations consultant, with some investments, but remains guarded about some aspects of his personal life.

He doesn't share details about where he lives for fear he and his family could be targeted. But he wants to be the father he never had and says he knows the hard work, drama and unwanted attention his children face.

"My son, Rashad, told me … 'Daddy, do you know what hell I go through just being your son?' I don't even tell people you are my father. Because the first thing they do is start judging me based on you,' " Quanell said.

"I never tried to make any of them like that."

'Always scared'

Quanell Ralph Evans was born in California, the middle of three sons, and moved to Houston when he was 5 years old.

He tells a story of a rugged life in a broken home that would only grow more chaotic over the years.

His father stayed behind in California and had nothing to do with his life. His mother, he says, was a drug addict and alcoholic who regularly abused him and his two brothers, Quincy and Quintin - with words, fists and whatever she could grab.

Quanell recalled sipping his first beer at age 5 with his mother at their rented house on Holloway. She was high, as usual, and challenged him and an older cousin to see who could drink a can of Schlitz malt liquor the fastest. The winner got to smoke a joint. His cousin won.

When it came to meals, clothes or other needs, Quanell and his brothers were on their own. Quincy, the oldest, would shoplift food from nearby stores. He'd also steal school clothes by breaking into the homes of other families in the neighborhood right before the start of a school year.

Young Quanell was soon taken in by the pimps, prostitutes and other players at the corner, which would come alive at night. By the time he was 6 years old, the pimps would pay him a few dollars a day to help him keep track of the women's customers.

Eventually, Child Protective Services stepped in, but the brothers stayed together.

One time, when he was 14, he and his younger brother Quintin, who went by "Toast," spent three nights hiding in an auto salvage yard to avoid a caseworker. Quanell slept in the car with a butcher knife so his brother could rest.

"My little brother was scared, always scared," Quanell said. "I needed to show him I could protect him if something happened."

About that time, his grandmother returned to Texas from California to try to help raise the children. Even in her 60s, she worked long hours, often overnight, as a housekeeper for a wealthy family.

Quanell recalled accompanying his grandmother sometimes and helping her clean the home. They were forbidden from using the front door, and he'd have to turn his pant pockets inside out before leaving each day to prove he hadn't been stealing.

It was his first experience with racism, he said.

As he grew older, he turned to drugs, first using, then dealing, and ran with two gangs, the Rolling 60 Crenshaw Crops and the South Acres Fools, or SA Fools.

He was convicted of cocaine possession in 1989, at age 22, and spent a stint in the Harris County Jail but was not sent to prison.

Life-changing events

Quanell's life changed in an instant a year later, in September 1990, and he has never again touched a joint, drunk alcohol or run the streets.

Quanell was high, wearing pants low on his hips and gold caps on his teeth, when he saw a handbill that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was speaking in Houston. He wanted to hear what the minister had to say.

Farrakhan spoke in Houston as part of his "Stop the Killing" tour - a campaign to end black-on-black violence. Quanell said he'd never before seen so many well-dressed, well-read, organized, disciplined black men. He decided he had to stand among them.

He joined the Nation of Islam and seemed to find everything he craved. He completed his high school equivalency and furthered his studies in Muslim schools. He changed his name to Quanell X Abdul Farrakhan, rejecting the last name given to his family generations earlier as slaves in East Texas, and goes by Quanell X in the same manner as civil rights leader Malcolm X.

"If it were not for the Nation of Islam, I'd be dead or in prison," he said.

Quanell became a spokesman for the group but says he never truly fit in with the "college boys" who largely made up the group.

Minister Robert Muhammad, who is now the student regional minister for the Nation of Islam, said he was at Quanell's side when he made another decisive turn in life.

Quanell had been in a Sunnyside barbershop when his brother, Quincy, hustled in with news: Quintin had been shot.

The pair scrambled to the small duplex on Coffee where their younger brother lived. Four people had been fatally shot in the head as part of a drug dispute.

"We raised my little brother like he was our child," Quanell said. "We were our own parents."

Quanell's immediate reaction was that those who harmed Toast had to pay. But Muhammad offered an alternative.

"He said, 'Brother, what do you want more - revenge or change?' " Quanell recalled.

He was staggered at the thought.

"I knew at that moment what I had to do. I had to make a difference in these streets and to do something to help stop the killing," he said. "It was time for me to implement a whole other committed level."

Quanell recalled his last conversation with his younger brother two days before the shooting, after Quintin had seen Quanell on the news, talking as a member of the Nation of Islam to the community's elite at a meeting.

"My brother called me and said, 'Quan, keep talking; everybody needs to hear what you have to say. The whole neighborhood needs to hear what you have to say. Don't you ever stop talking, Quan.' "

More to accomplish

Today, as a Muslim, he starts each day before sunrise with prayer, usually on a mat in his home office.

He spends about two hours a day in the gym, mostly doing weights, and can easily bench press 425 pounds.

He drinks at least a gallon of water each 24 hours.

He has three ex-wives, all of whom he describes as great women, and said mistrust of his mother as a child stopped him from being able to trust them as an adult.

He also has eight children, including a 10-year-old who studies at an Islamic school, speaks Arabic and is a standout player on a predominantly white youth football team, where Quanell is an assistant coach.

At a recent game, Quanell marched along the sidelines as his son's Cardinals lost by a wide margin to the larger, older Oilers. His son was shut down by the other team's defense, which seemed to focus on him at every turn.

"I told him when people target you, it will break you or make you stronger," Quanell said.

Former Houston Police Chief Charles A. McClelland, who is also black, said Quanell is part of a generation of activists trying to fill the void left behind by aging civil rights leaders of the past. He and Quanell don't agree on much, but the activist has convinced certain communities that he speaks for them, he said.

"He navigates in communities where folks like a Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton, or the president of the NAACP or Urban League of Houston won't navigate," McClelland said. "He is very street-wise, has a Ph.D. in street sense. … He has everybody drinking the Kool-Aid. When he does clown stuff and foolishness, all the media shows up."

Looking ahead

As Quanell sees it, his performance in front of the cameras is just one part of his strategy. He also investigates cases, telling clients he'll find the truth and warning authorities they'll be held accountable.

And though he considers race relations in the U.S. the worst he's ever seen, he is adamant that he no longer judges others by the color of their skin.

"I don't have the same strict, strident view and hateful view of white people that I had as a young man," he said. "The biggest problem among us black people is we use racism as an excuse to cover our failures, our shortcomings and our wrongs. Racism in my eyes is when you have truly been discriminated against on some level and mistreated on some level because of your skin color or cultural or ethnic background."

His return recently to the street corner at Holloway and Roandale brought a flood of painful memories. But he was greeted like family by some, and a rock star by others.

Person after person said they were proud of what he'd become. A college student, who said she'd only ever seen him on television, stopped her car for a selfie photo. A neighborhood man known as Bone Shaker said he watched Quanell grow up on the streets and considers him a son.

"I raised that boy," Bone Shaker said, with a grin of pride. "He's done what he was supposed to do and become who he was supposed to become. … If (Mayor) Sylvester Turner can do it, he can do it."

Muhammad said Quanell's legacy is still being shaped.

"To deal with Quanell is to understand the streets, understand the rough side of life," Muhammad said. "God is not through with him yet. He is a human being that I believe is on an evolutionary path to fulfilling his own potential."

Cindy George contributed to this report.