Allan Appel Photo
They lost children to the streets, to prison, some forever. They gathered in a mayoral candidate’s headquarters to share those stories in the hope of coming up with solutions to the street violence plaguing New Haven’s black community.
Alice Stewart (pictured), who said she lost her son to a life in the streets (he’s still alive), was one of 25 people who gathered for that session Wednesday night at the Whalley Avenue campaign headquarters of Clifton Graves, a Democratic candidate for mayor.
The two-hour session brought forth moving testimony from the sisters, mothers, and grandmothers of those who have been in jail or who have lost friends to recent street violence.
One woman said she came to the meeting because she had three sons on the street. In addition to their risky lives, she said she was in personal danger because if someone had something against one of her sons, there might be retaliation against her.
Several, like Thomas Daniels, who lost his son two years ago, responded to the violence by forming their own organizations. “My son was my main motivation for staying out of prison,” he said. “Someone came and stole my joy. I cry every day.”
Daniels has founded an organization named Fathers Cry Too.
Stewart said she lost one of her children when he fell into violence and spent 14 years in prison. She brought one of her 17 grandkids, Sean Bradley (at right in photo with Graves), to Wednesday’s event.
Graves said he has boys even younger than 8‑year-old Sean who tell him their main aim in life is to survive to age 18.
Stewart told the candidate that kids need more jobs and chances to become entrepreneurs.
Graves, who has previously criticized the mayor’s education initiatives, tied the talk to a campaign theme: “There was a $1 billion school construction program, and not one apprenticeship/internship came out of that. Not one apprenticeship program they can point to. That money went out of New Haven.”
Crime has become the number-one issue in the campaign this year, as Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. seeks a 10th two-year term, and the number of homicide victims so this year has climbed to 19. If that pace continues, 2011 would become New Haven’s deadliest on record.
(“Many of the accusations Mr. Graves makes are patently false. Since 2005, almost 3,000 New Haven residents have worked on school construction projects in the last few years totaling about $17 million in wages,” DeStefano campaign manager Danny Kedem replied Friday. “In the last three years, over 3,000 kids have participated in the Youth@Work program. It’s unfortunate that Mr. Graves would make statements when he is clearly not representing the facts.”)
Steven Echols, from the Hill, said he was particularly shocked at the shooting death of his lifelong friend John-Claude James on Howard and Spring streets over the weekend.
He said leaving a life on the streets has been an uphill climb.
“I’m 27, been running the streets since I was 13,” Echols said. Out of jail a year, and with a child on the way, he said that he had been looking for gainful employment for a year but had found nothing but “door after door slammed in my face.”
Political activist Barbara Fair told Echols she is from a different generation but feels his pain. She said she has been out of work for two years, even though she’s a social worker with a master’s degree. She told Echols, as did local architect and developer Wendell Harp, that there is a community out there that stands “at your back.” That community would lend him money if he needed it, that would help him get diapers for his baby.
Echols is now working with a relatively new group, Frontline Souljaz, that’s trying to turn young black men’s entrepreneurial energy from the illicit to the socially productive.
Graves & Peters.
One of those Souljaz, Maurice “Blest” Peters, said the answer to Echols’ problem lies in real work alternatives, not just a new sense of hope.
“Steve has been hanging tight to this lifeline,” Peters said. This is a brother who used to shoot and be shot. If you give him a job, make him an example [to the notion] if they hold fast to the lifeline,” then Echols will lead the way for others to follow suit.
Peters was one of several current and former street outreach workers to attend the event.
They aim to stay in touch with the small core of young men causing the violence and those on the border line of falling in or looking for a new vision of self-worth to keep them out of the street.
Graves proposed a “peace summit” later this summer to combat a sense of hopelessness and bring the city together to continue Wednesday’s discussion.
Kevin Edwards, another street outreach worker, urged Graves to focus on the leaders of the violence: “Don’t go citywide. Get the influential ones from different parts of the city who can go back to the hood and influence.”
From left: Peters, Fair, Remidy.
Former street outreach worker and spoken word artist Remidy said Graves should not offer what can’t be delivered. He cautioned the invitation to a peace summit should be casual and should involve breaking bread, sharing a meal, and the conversation would follow.
He was asked whether he believes the summit is worth the risk even if jobs leads could not be provided. If it could restore people’s sense of pride and self worth, that goal would in itself be worthy, useful, and even lifesaving, Remidy replied.
As the gathering broke up after more than two hours, Echols said he would attend such a summit. But what about his “boys,” with whom he stays in touch but no longer runs with?
“They’re not ready,” he said. “You’ve got to want to change inside.”