over 1,700 kids were killed or injured by guns, heavily concentrated in the inner cities. Where were the tears for them?
The disparity is partially an adult affliction: shrugging our shoulders at the urban violence, wishing we could help, but flummoxed how. We don’t understand the nuances of their neighborhoods or experience their pain. But paralysis is a learned response, and kids are often still appalled. The MFOL kids were.
“We know that the reason that we’re getting this attention is because we’re privileged white kids,” Delaney Tarr said. “If you look at Chicago, there’s such a high level of gun violence. But that’s not getting the attention that this is getting because we’re in such a nice area.”
They were determined to change that. They made their first move right out of the gate: Don’t frame the problem as school shootings. They were fighting gun violence, for all kids, not just them. But they didn’t know much about urban violence, either. Time to start talking to city kids.
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Arne Duncan had served eight years as Chicago’s schools superintendent and seven more as Obama’s secretary of education. He lives in Chicago, ground zero in the urban gun wars. Duncan saw a chance for a powerful connection. He reached the Parkland kids through their school superintendent, and then got in touch with Father Michael Pfleger on the embattled South Side. Father Pfleger is the pastor of Saint Sabina Catholic Church, Chicago’s largest African American Catholic congregation. It has become a beacon of hope in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood ravaged by gun violence. He runs the BRAVE (Bold Resistance Against Violence Everywhere) youth group there, organizes the annual Peace Marches, and mentors young activists of color across some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods. The pastor recruited a few kids from BRAVE, and more from the Peace Warriors group on the embattled West Side.
The Parkland kids were all over it. It came together on a Friday night and Emma agreed to host a meeting at her house the next day. They didn’t want another weekend to go by.
D’Angelo McDade was the executive director of the Peace Warriors, a professional position intended for an experienced full-time adult. D’Angelo was a high school senior, struggling to avoid violence and get to college. Months later, asked if he recalled how he got the invite, he answered without hesitation. “I was called at 11:26 on March 2. At 11:26 p.m., I called and texted Alex. I called him at 12; I texted him at 1.”
Alex King is a fellow Peace Warrior—a big, stocky guy with a generous crown of cornrows and a close-cropped beard. He’s a really smart kid with a sly sense of humor, constantly taking people by surprise. Alex has spent his life around guns, and has a lot to say. “I’ve been shot at, I’ve had guns pulled on me—really, I’ve had it all,” Alex said. His first time getting shot at was at age fourteen—he thinks; they run together. The first time he encountered a gun was at age eight; he just stumbled on it in a closet.
Duncan bought the plane tickets, and early Saturday half a dozen kids, plus two parents, were drinking in the Florida sunshine. It was freezing when they woke up in Chicago, snow still on the ground from a brutal storm two weeks earlier. Felt good to take their coats off—they would be swimming in a few hours. How crazy to be cranking the AC! All these palm trees waving along the highway. They really had those, even at the airport; they were everywhere. How cool to finally see them in real life.
They pulled up at Emma’s. “It was a gated community, and I thought it was a hotel resort or something,” Alex said. “I was like man, she lives here! And then when we pulled up to her house, my first reaction: Should I step on the grass? Should I go straight to the sidewalk?” Emma’s mom rushed out to greet them, and she walked straight up the lawn. “So I just followed her,” he said. “And then I saw the house—it was like this big glass window that was also a door and I was like, ‘Wow, OK.’ And I also thought, ‘Should I take my shoes off before I step in?’ But when I actually got in there, Emma came around the corner running, hugging everyone—it was just like happy faces all around the room.”
That’s the thing about Emma. I’ve asked hundreds of people to describe the Parkland