Allan Appel Photo
Ace and Homi.
Wearing shades and smoking cigarillos, Homi and Ace sat indifferently on the stoop between Rong Fa’s Chinese Take Out and Victor’s Market on Spring and Howard in the Hill. It was one block from where their friend John-Claude James had been shot and killed a little more than a week ago.
The two young men wanted little to do with the people-power rally across the street calling them out to fight gun violence.
A half-hour later they were wearing anti-violence buttons. An hour later Homi had registered to vote.
The Frontline Souljaz called him out.
The scene was a Souljaz-organized anti-gun violence rally Tuesday that attracted 25 to 30 pedestrians — and brought the concern about New Haven’s rise in homicides to the people who live with the fallout.
Clifton Graves (left) and Maurice “Blest” Peters.
With a bullhorn and a barbecue Maurice “Blest” Peters, along with other members of Frontline Souljaz, called out: “Job Corps didn’t have to die. That brother didn’t have to die. Our babies think it’s normal. Come on and have a hot dog and hamburger. Let us know what’s going on, and register to vote.”
Frontline Souljaz is a new fraternal economic self-help group in which older black men help younger ones to hitch their entrepreneurial talent to good ends. (Click here for a story on their violence-reducing basketball tourney at West River Memorial Park.)
The rally, in which police brutality activist Barbara Fair’s My Brother’s Keeper group and Unidad Latina En Accion also participated, clustered around a grill on a postage-stamp lawn a block from Putnam and Howard, where on July 9 John-Claude James was shot. His funeral and burial were held earlier Tuesday.
But Homi and Ace, who did not want to give their real names or be photographed frontally, would have none of it. At first. Homi said he had known John-Claude since he was 14. He said he mistrusted the police report that evidence preliminarily indicated that the shooting was drug-related.
“I doubt that just because he had a little weed on him. I hope they catch the people who did it.”
Police spokesman Joe Avery said as of Tuesday there was no new information to report on the case, and its status is unchanged.
As the aroma of crispy dogs and burgers wafted across Howard Avenue, Homi said his main objection to going across the street to the rally was that it would not bring John-Claude James back to life.
“Why they wait for someone to die to do that?” he said.
In fact Peters and his group had been on the very same corner a week before James was killed.
Barbara Fair’s 8‑year-old granddaughter Jonae Outlaw and Myra Smith offered Ace a “Where did they get the gun?” button. He pinned it on.
The bullhorn calls persisted: “Pull up your pants and come on over!” “Where did they get the guns?” “Why are they using them?” “We were out here before the act of violence.”
Smith said to Homi and Ace: “Don’t wait till others do it. Stand up for your community. If you are weak, come over here and get some of this power.”
Eventually the two men stubbed out their smokes, waited at the light and sauntered over to the barbecue and rally. Asked why they changed their minds, Homi said matter-of-factly: “They kept saying ‘Come over.’”
They made their way directly to the grill but pointedly Homi said, “We all would have come over even if there weren’t hot dogs.”
As they waited for the meat to be turned for a few more minutes, Homi said the biggest problem in the neighborhood was the police harassing people and not solving crimes.
Ace had an original theory about the many crimes that go unsolved. “I believe it’s easier for them to let these [the unsolved crimes] be. The less violence in the community, the less need for cops.”
Democratic mayoral candidates Clifton Graves, who had attended John-Claude James’ funeral earlier, and Jeffrey Kerekes attended the rally. “There are too many guns and not enough jobs and youth activities,” said Graves. He repeated a call for a late-August peace summit including young men causing the violence or on the verge of it.
Kerekes, who was invited to the rally by Peters, said being a cop is a tough job. Still he called for putting teeth in the Civilian Review Board.
As Homi waited for his burger, Frontline Souljaz member Kevin Ewing offered him a voter registration sheet.
“This is the way we exercise our rights,” said Ewing. Homi said he is 29 and has never voted. Ewing told him about the time he told his grandfather he wasn’t going to vote: “He hit me upside the head and said: ‘You know what we went through for this.’”
Homi promised he would vote. Ewing said his group would make sure that was the case.
The rally was part of a series of events called “Provoking Thought Tuesdays,” said Peters. He and his colleagues vow to hit a different neighborhood each week calling for attitude changes, a new vision of dignity on the streets, and an end to violence. Next week’s Tuesday is scheduled to take place in West River at Norton and Derby.
“We haven’t lost a life there in a while,” Peters said. “We’re going there to be proactive.”
“You came over,” Myra Smith said to Ace and Homi. “People are watching you. That’s leadership.”