Exclusive Clothing #001

Joe Baldwin Jr. was born and raised in Columbus, Mississippi, in the Morningside Projects on 25th Street, now known as Martin Luther King Drive. One of six children, he grew up in an environment marked by poverty, dysfunction, and a level of pain so constant it eventually felt normal. What might have been alarming to others simply seemed like everyday life to him. At fifteen, he joined a gang. By sixteen, drugs and alcohol had entered the picture. The progression came quickly: weed, cocaine, then crack, then heroin. He was part of a generation shaped by survival in a broken system, where struggle was expected and dysfunction often went unnoticed.

“When everybody around you is doing the same thing,” he said, “you don’t recognize it as dysfunction. It just becomes what life looks like.”

Within that reality, Joe watched his siblings face many of the same struggles: incarceration, violence, a life altering injury, and the tragic loss of life. His own story became a cycle of arrests, convictions, and time served in jails and prisons across Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Washington, and more.

Reflecting on that period, he doesn’t make excuses. “My best thinking got me in prison,” he says. “I had to surrender.”

But surrender, as Joe explains, is not always a single moment. Often, it is a slow breaking down, a painful unraveling that leads to renewal. Sometimes God lets you reach the bottom, but He never leaves. There is still light to see the first step forward.

The Bus Ticket and the $50

In 1997, with a criminal record, fifty dollars, and a one way bus ticket, Joe left Mississippi for Atlanta. He arrived with no job, no place to stay, and no plan. After spending his last bit of money at Magic City, he returned to the bus station, wondering what bridge he might sleep under that night.

As the spiral threatened to continue, a stranger walked up and offered him a job selling books and magazines door to door.

That unexpected encounter, Joe now says, was the beginning of God showing up in his life in a way he could not yet understand. The job itself may have seemed unremarkable, but its impact was transformative. It gave him distance from the life he had known and revealed gifts he hadn’t yet realized he carried. He discovered a natural ability for conversation, the power of consistency, and the value of connecting with others through presence and honesty.

“I wasn’t really selling magazines,” he said. “I was selling myself. I was telling people who I was, and they responded.”

He rose quickly into a leadership role, training others and eventually becoming one of the top salespeople in a national company of more than 1,500 people. His work took him across the country: Florida, California, Washington, Wyoming. In every city, addiction followed. There were relapses, arrests, and moments of withdrawal that left him collapsed in hotel bathtubs or admitted to emergency rooms. And yet, there were also unmistakable moments of grace.

Joe remembers one of them vividly, a cab driver who picked him up early in the evening. Hours later, after a long night of bad decisions, the same driver appeared again. Joe was in need of help.

“You don’t have to explain,” the driver said. “I already know what happened.”

Joe is convinced the man was an angel. “He took us all the way back to where he picked us up from. Dropped us off. Didn’t charge us a dime,” he recalls. “So be careful when you are being entertained by a stranger. Could be that you are entertained by an angel.”

The Return to Columbus

In 1999, Joe returned to Columbus. “God brought me back to the same town I grew up in,” he said. “But this time, I had something to give.”

He had come back to visit his brother, who was paralyzed from the waist down due to a gunshot wound. But Joe’s past caught up with him, and he was arrested and imprisoned once more, this time serving approximately seven years.

During that period of incarceration, Joe began his path to sobriety, studying theology and, by God’s grace, turning everything around. Upon release, he pursued that hunger for understanding with determination. He earned an associate degree in business administration, followed by a bachelor’s, and then a master’s degree focused on marketing. Today, he is working toward a doctorate in rural area development, with a vision of investing in the kind of transformation that communities like Columbus deserve.

But Joe’s work doesn’t live only in classrooms or degrees. His impact is much more immediate. You will find it at 3910 Hwy 45 N in Columbus, the home of Exclusive Clothing.

Exclusive Clothing: A Hometown Experience

In 2009, with a deepening faith and a newborn daughter on the way, Joe began selling apparel at local festivals and events. Those early efforts turned into a small storefront, and then something more.

Exclusive Clothing has since grown into an expansive business offering a wide range of clothing and custom gifts, including embroidery, screen printing, promotional products, Bluetooth tumblers, graduation stoles, and more.

But from day one, it was never just about the products.

“I didn’t go into business just to sell clothes,” Joe said. “This is a vehicle for ministry. It is a hometown experience.”

Customers are often greeted by name. The fashion is curated with intention, avoiding anything demeaning or spiritually damaging. Conversations about faith and life unfold naturally.

Joe’s approach is personal. He wants every customer to walk away with more than just a quality product. He wants them to feel welcomed, valued, and uplifted. The clothes may bring people in, but it is the care that brings them back.

“I want them to leave thinking, ‘That just made my world better,’” he says. “That is how I measure success.”

Along the way, he has also reconnected with his older children, another layer of healing that adds meaning to everything he now builds.

Building Something Bigger

For Joe, Exclusive Clothing is only the beginning. The business is not the destination, it is the launchpad.

He now teaches business classes, mentors aspiring entrepreneurs, and is building the Entrepreneur Development Institute, a local training platform designed to equip people with the tools, confidence, and mindset to build something of their own.

Many of his students are women. “They are more open to learning,” he says. “A lot of guys walk in thinking they already know everything.”

But he is open to teaching anyone willing to grow. His topics range from business fundamentals to printing processes, and he even explores storytelling and podcasting as ways to build brand presence and personal purpose.

His long term vision is built on the belief that towns like Columbus do not need saving from the outside. They need ownership, opportunity, and a chance to rise from within.

He dreams of a future where stories like his are no longer buried in shame but lifted up as evidence of what is possible when faith meets opportunity.

Testimony Over Silence

Joe could choose to hide from his past. But instead, he speaks it aloud, fully aware that the very things the enemy tried to use against him are now the things God is using to bring healing, hope, and a growing faith to others.

“Satan wants to use your story against you, to extort you through shame,” he says. “But when you give your testimony, you take the power back. God gets the glory.”

He sees the full circle now. It is a redemptive arc: from dysfunction to discipleship, from jail cells to retail shelves, from invisibility to visibility.

The path hasn’t been easy, but now it is clear. And when Joe greets you today, there is a light in him that is impossible to miss, a genuine joy, a presence, and a life ready to be poured out for others.

“I just want to be an asset. I want God to use me. I want to be His voice.”

And in a small storefront in Columbus, Mississippi, that voice is being heard.