The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League

Robert DeShaun Peace is the central figure in The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace. The memoir explores Rob’s journey as he goes from an underprivileged childhood in a rough neighborhood to college at Yale and then ends up a victim of a drug-related homicide. Born and raised in the crime-ridden neighborhood of East Orange, which is a suburb of Newark, New Jersey, Rob is a gifted and highly intelligent young man who excels academically despite the challenges of his environment. Rob’s academic brilliance earns him a place at Yale University, where he studies molecular biophysics and biochemistry. Despite the opportunities afforded by his Ivy League education, he remains deeply tied to his Newark roots and struggles to reconcile the elitist world of Yale with the harsh realities of his upbringing. After graduating, he returns to Newark, creating his own strain of marijuana and selling it. His involvement in the drug trade ultimately leads to his tragic death at the age of 30, when he is shot and killed by members of a rival gang.

Hobbs depicts Rob as quietly charismatic, empathetic, and a natural leader. During his short life, he positively influences the lives of others: For instance, as a high school teacher, he mentors the youth of Newark, and as a student at Yale, he creates a bridge between people of different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. Rob always seeks to help others, and Hobbs notes that this is often to his own detriment. The memoir also conveys Rob’s conflicted character as his academic abilities clash with his sense of loyalty to his origins. The various names ascribed to him reflect his complex nature. As a young child, he is dubbed “the Professor” due to his precocious intelligence. As a teen, he goes by the name Shawn, taking on a street-smart persona. Meanwhile, his colleagues at the airport refer to him as “Peace,” reflecting his aura of calmness.

According to Hobbs, Rob is significant not only because he is the subject of this biography but also because he is an embodiment of the difficulties faced by young Black American men who attempt to transcend their socioeconomic circumstances. His story raises important questions about the limitations of education as a tool for upward mobility, demonstrating how environment and upbringing can permanently limit personal choices.

Rob’s mother, Jackie Peace, is described as “a striking woman with small but intense eyes, a tall brow, an angular chin, thin lips and short hair (she refused to spend money on a weave) that cumulatively projected an immovable conviction” (7). Her features and hairstyle convey her independent spirit, determination, and refusal to spend her hard-earned money on herself. Although raised in Newark herself, Jackie has greater aspirations for her son. Keenly aware of how the neighborhood limits the prospects of its residents, she wants Rob to break out of the cycle of poverty that defines it. She instills her son with her conviction that education is the pathway to opportunity.

Jackie embodies maternal sacrifice as she works two jobs and goes without any luxuries to afford Rob’s private schooling. While her siblings leave Newark for better prospects, she stays back to ensure that her son can eventually escape. Hobbs underlines the physical and emotional toll of this sacrifice on Jackie over the years. While Rob flourishes academically, she feels “that her own body had withered in inverse proportion, that her own mind had become diffuse and good for little besides calculating stew ingredients according to size” (109). Her aspirations for Rob are fulfilled when he goes to Yale. However, this is also a world she cannot relate to, reflected in the discomfort she displays in the Ivy-League environment. Hobbs depicts how, once Rob graduates and returns to Newark, Jackie is frustrated by his reluctance to exploit the advantages of his academic success. She ultimately Illustrates the limits of a parent’s power to shape their child’s future.

Rob’s father, Skeet Douglas, is a charismatic and intelligent man. He commands respect in his Newark community and, before his imprisonment, worked as a marijuana dealer in the East Orange neighborhood. Skeet has strong social connections in the neighborhood and is characterized by his loyalty to family and friends. He is a role model for his young son, instilling in Rob a love of Newark and its people. While Skeet is proud of his son’s intelligence, he considers Jackie’s aspirations to privately educate Rob “uppity.”

When Rob is seven, Skeet is arrested and later convicted for murdering two young women. Consequently, he is absent from Rob’s day-to-day-life. However, Rob visits him in jail, and Skeet remains a defining presence in his son’s life. Believing his father’s claim that he was wrongfully convicted, Rob takes on responsibility for his father’s legal case. He works on a series of appeals that span his high school and college years. This unwavering commitment reflects Rob’s desire to help his loved ones and his inability to let go of the past, even when it might be in his best interest to do so. Skeet’s absence also affects Rob’s sense of responsibility. Feeling he must fill the void Skeet has left, “he aggressively assume[s] the role of husband to his mother” (56), believing that he must financially provide for Jackie. This becomes a lifelong trait, influencing some of his worst decisions.

Theoretically, Skeet’s conviction and eventual death in prison from cancer frees Rob from the impossible task of honoring the conflicting wishes of both his parents. Skeet’s absence allows Jackie to privately educate Rob without interference, and Rob thrives intellectually as a result. However, Rob’s loyalty to his father’s values intensifies in Skeet’s absence. Hobbs draws attention to how Rob’s life increasingly mirrors Skeet’s trajectory. For example, he notes that the “bright orange vest” Rob wears in his job at the airport “called to mind his father’s prison uniform during those first three years at Essex County” (287). Rob also begins dealing marijuana in Newark after graduating from Yale, demonstrating that, despite his educational advantages, he follows in his father’s footsteps.

When Rob joins St. Benedict’s water polo team, he makes four lifelong friends: Tavarus Hester, Drew Jemison, Flowy Starkes, and Curtis Gamble. Collectively, they call themselves “the Burger Boyz” and develop a strong bond based on their shared experiences. While they attend a private school, all of them except for Curtis come from socially and economically disadvantaged families and have absent fathers. 

Rob’s friendship with the Burger Boyz illustrates the memoir’s theme of The Benefits and Costs of Family and Community Loyalty. While he forms many other friendships during his life, none match the intensity of the bond he shares with his childhood friends from Newark. Rob spends some of his happiest times with them, and the memoir emphasizes how the group bolsters one another’s confidence and aspirations as they grow up. However, once Rob goes to Yale, the influence of his friends becomes less positive. The draw of their company is one of the major factors that prompts Rob to return to Newark and resort to drug dealing. Jackie’s request that the Burger Boyz not attend her son’s funeral underlines her belief that they are largely responsible for his death.