Peace March Fills Fair Haven Streets

A rally cry for peace echoed through the streets of Fair Haven Tuesday as 60 New Haveners marched and prayed for an end to the city’s raging gun violence.

Anti-violence group Ice the Beef hosted that rally for peace in partnership with the Fair Haven neighbors and community leaders who have spent every night of the past week ​“occupying” the parking lot in front of Grand Cafe in a bid to deter violence and drug dealing outside the neighborhood hotspot.

Tuesday’s march began on at John Martinez School on the southwestern edge of Fair Haven at Chapel and James Streets.

It saw participants march all the way across the neighborhood to the bar’s parking lot at East Pearl Street and Grand Avenue for a peace rally, speeches, music, and poetry.

(Click here for a previous story about the sit-in, where the bar’s owner and customers defended Grand Cafe as a popular neighborhood hangout that has been unfairly targeted for outdoor violence it can’t control.)

Hillhouse junior and Fair Havener Manuel Camacho is the Youth President of Ice the Beef. Camacho, who is 16, organized the march and rally on International Day of Peace to bring neighbors together to problem solve, he said.

“This can no longer be an Ice the Beef thing,” Camacho said. ​“The community should be stronger and able to rely on each other.”

Camacho got the idea for the march and rally after attending the vigil for 14 year old Tyshaun Hargrove, who was shot dead in Fair Haven Aug. 25.

These past three weeks Camacho has worked on planning the march walking route, reaching out to community members, and building alliances with local leaders.

The Tuesday rally aimed to highlight neighbors’ voices and concerns with the city’s gun violence uptick. Camacho said the rally also marked the beginning of a citywide effort to create more community driven committees and groups in all neighborhoods to proactively find solutions to violence rather than ​“waiting for a homicide to happen.” 

Members of the Fair Haven Community Management Team, alders from Fair Haven and beyond, neighborhood families and children, New Haven Rising labor organizers, and Black Lives Matter New Haven leaders all participated in the event.

“We can talk about the problems but where does that get us? We have to bring the community together to talk about solutions,” Camacho said. ​“I’m just a community member who wants to bring change.”

At the end of Tuesday’s event, Ice the Beef collected neighbors’ contact information and had those interested sign a ​“Freedom Fighters Pledge” to declare their promise to continuing to fight for peace.

“We cannot lose one more life. But in order for us to address the problem we need to ensure we tackle poverty, education, and jobs. That’s the problem that we need to face,” said State Rep. Juan Candelaria before marching with the community from John Martinez School.

Others in attendance were Fair Haven Alder Jose Crespo, Hill Alder Ron Hurt, Republican mayoral candidate John Carlson, former East Rock Alder Allan Brison, and Downtown Alder Eli Sabin.

Before the start of the march, community members bowed their heads to ​“pray against the spirit of murder.”

“We pray father God that you dispatch the police to the right places at the right times,” said Pastor Valerie Washington. ​“No weapon formed against New Haven shall prosper.”

Hillhouse graduate and Ice the Beef Youth Vice President Catherine Wicks, 17, performed a poem called ​“Don’t Shoot” at the start and end of the of the march.

“Please, I’m only 17. I just got my learner’s permit. My mom’s waiting at home for me. Please don’t shoot,” Wicks said.

Around 6 p.m., the community members began marching down Wolcott Street from John Martinez School.

The marchers stopped to pray at three violence-prone areas of Fair Haven while on their way to the sit-in event outside Grand Cafe. Ice the Beef Outreach Director Remidy Shareef prayed at the first stop at the corner of Wolcott and Lloyd Streets.

The marchers chanted in unison, ​“Whose streets? Our streets,” ​“What do we want? Peace. When do we want it? Now,” ​“If we don’t get it? Shut it down,” as they continued down Wolcott and then turned onto Blatchley Avenue. They then moved down Clay Street to the intersection of Ferry Street for another prayer.

Elder Darryl Copeland led the prayer at the corner, just four blocks away from where Hargrove lost his life, on Chatham Street between Rowe and Ferry Streets.

“Continue to unite us as one lord God,” Copeland said.

The final prayer was by Washington at the intersection of Ferry Street and Grand Avenue. The group continued down Grand until getting to the Grand Cafe plaza on Grand Avenue.

Since Sept. 15 Fair Haven neighbors have been holding musical sit-ins in the plaza parking lot every night in protest of the spot’s many incidents with drug dealing and violence. (Read more about the sit-in protest here.)

Organizers of the sit-in Kica Matos, Sarah Miller, and Karen DuBois-Walton partnered with Camacho for the Tuesday gathering in the parking lot.

Around 6:30 p.m. the marchers joined the dozen sit-in protestors for a near hour long rally in the parking lot. A line up of speakers was arranged for the remainder of the sit-in protest.

“There’s been a pattern of violence in this plaza that we want to interrupt as neighbors,” Miller said when the group arrived outside Grand Cafe.

“We are changing what it feels like in this parking lot,” said DuBois-Walton.

The duo collected petition signatures Tuesday night to ​“hold the business owners accountable for what they’re bringing into our community.” The petition is to get a hearing in front of the state Liquor Commission to hear from the bar owners about their commitments to keeping the plaza safe. DuBois-Walton said the organizers have collected ​“hundreds” of signatures so far.

“Next time we should take up this entire parking lot full of people. That is how many people should be with us. Because only when community comes together can things happen,” Camacho said.

Shareef urged the community to look past their differences to ​“come together as one human family.”

“If our youth don’t know that they are loved, that they are cared for. If our youth don’t know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel, then they going to keep being in this destructive pattern,” he said.

Some customers of Grand Cafe and the neighboring corner market came outside the businesses to listen to the speakers. Others engaged in one-on-one conversations with some of the protesters.

“Stop blaming our youth for a problem they inherited and did not create,” Shareef said. ​“Stop blaming them. Stop looking at them like they savages, and like they’re a waste of time, they need to be locked in jail, or killed themselves because you think they’re animals. What makes you think in your right mind that this is how people want to live?”

Click here and here to watch videos from Tuesday night’s march.