“This could have been my daughter,” said Robert Lewis, Jr. the vice president of programming at the Boston Foundation, who held a stand-out Thursday to support the victims and let the neighbors know they aren’t in the battle against violence on their streets alone. “We’re not here to judge, we just can’t keep losing young people. We have to show up because we care.”
About 40 service providers, clergy, local organizations, and residents walked along the street Thursday afternoon, talking with each other and with neighbors about ways to curtail the violence.
“Everybody is scared to walk around, nobody wants to be shot,” said Tony Seymour Robinson, the founder of Youth In Crisis Ministry Inc., a nonprofit that aims to provide youth an alternative to the guns and violence on their streets. “We have to find a way to deescalate this.”
Local youth, who also took part in the stand-out, said the violence has become a constant in their lives.
“Honestly as a young woman, this is me standing up and saying I don’t agree with this,” said Rachel Thomas, 18, a Dorchester resident. “Ever since I can remember I’ve been attending funerals for people that didn’t die of natural causes.”
But although providers and supporters turned out Thursday afternoon, the sight is not new nor is the call for an end to violence.
“The next step for us is to call attention to the need for more resources,” said Michael Curry, president of the Boston NAACP, who was in attendance Thursday.
Many called for more resources and support for area students, including an expansion of the Street Workers Program and other mentoring services in the neighborhood.
Curry also added that in addition to more resources, the older-generation needs to stop talking at the youth and talk to them.
“What’s clear for the NAACP is we haven’t made young people part of conversation,” said Curry. “We need to reach out to the at-risk youth and find out from the people picking up the guns what drove them to do that.”
But even with the support and the call for resources and justice, three women are dead and residents and their families must stay in the neighborhood and hope that their children can walk down the street safely.
“We need more police in the neighborhood period,” said Margret Tubberville, who lives on the corner of Harlem and Glenway Street. “It’s crazy, there is a lot of stuff that goes on here, but I haven’t seen anything like this.”
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Email Patrick D. Rosso, patrick.d.rosso@gmail.com. Follow him @PDRosso, or friend him on Facebook.
(Patrick D. Rosso/Boston.com/2012)
Service providers and residents discussing the recent tragedy on Harlem Street, Thursday afternoon.
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