"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda
It’s June 19th – not even officially summer yet – and the wave of violence in Chicago has already kicked into high gear.
Just in the last two days more shootings, more death. This morning the Chicago Tribune reports two teens, 19 and 15, are dead and one 14-year-old is struggling to live through a gunshot wound to the head.
Faced with this community-wide epidemic of violence, some look away or gnash their teeth and weep. Some have made a fuss about forming commissions to figure out what to do about murder in their streets. The folks over at The Black Star Project are just out there solving the problem themselves – one kid at a time.
"People say the way to end violence is policemen or with helicopters or automatic weapons. That’s not going to stop violence! If you can teach these young people to read, if we can give them some hope, some vision, and some skills…that’s the only way," Phillip Jackson, BSP’s Executive Director, told me Tuesday afternoon as the media whipped itself into a frenzy over 19-year-old Jose Rivera’s bloody end on a south side playground. "It’s not very popular, it gets almost no funding and people say to me ‘It’s too hard.’ I don’t care how hard it is, it’s the only way."
The "way" to stop the street killings Phil’s referring to is best described by the 165,000 black, Hispanic, and other-wise underserved young students BSP has tutored, mentored, and inspired at public and private schools all over Chicago and its suburbs during a 12-year quest to use education to lift kids above the clamor of their neighborhood’s dangers.
Not to mention the 4,000 parents at BSP’s Parent University program, who get classes and support, in both English and Spanish, on how to guide their kids toward becoming life-long learners.
Oh, and let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands fathers who have come out en masse across 238 American cities on the first day of school to pledge their commitment to their kids' education during BSP’s wildly successful, four-year-old Million Father March.
The Black Star Project is, as I've come to think of them, the most effective, nationally-recognized anti-violence program you've never heard of.
"I try not to do things that are sensational, we do work of substance with all children, even if they're gangbangers," said Phillip, a retiree of Chicago Public Schools' system, "but the newspapers [and television] want more pizzazz – it's only front page news whenever we have a weekend when people are shot and there's a child or woman killed. We're working on solutions not gimmicks so there's almost no interest."
Barriers like media interest matter little to Phil and his team of 5 full-time employees; there's work to be done BSP has put the power of the internet to it. Lucky you if you're one of the 16,000 readers who get their bright, yellow-topped, e-blasted newsletters exclaiming "He who controls the education of the children control the future of that race."
Though that might sound politically incorrect, in reality, the color-blind organization services children of all races and ethnicities but their niche is African-American. "Our board members, mentors and volunteers are diverse – we don't discriminate, we make no apologies," Phil said, "But when you make a concerted effort to reach black boys– the Consortium on School Reform found that of black boys in kindergarden only 3 out of 100 will graduate college by age 25 – then you curtail the pipeline to jails and prisons."
But there is a price to pay for being bold, and nationally lauded but locally ignored. Not being the most quoted, or "go-to" social service organization makes it difficult to get people with money excited about the work that gets done each and everyday out of the glare of camera flashes and TV lights. Though BSP does make up part of their meager budget with earned income from CPS payment for mentorship programs, and enjoy generous donations from The Chicago Community Trust, ComEd, and Toyota Motor sales, the needs are many.
"We need funding stability, I spend 50-60 percent of my time making sure the lights stay on and people are going to get paid rather than spending time with the children but it doesn't matter. I'm going to be leaving this planet soon but what does matter is that the children we leave behind are going to be able to live together, work together, and learn together. That's what really matters."
You want an antidote to the daily "violence in our neighborhoods!!" news drama? Sign up for the Black Star Project's e-blast and get ready to receive a dose of real solutions.
Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact
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