COMMENTATOR (COMM.): Previously on Life...
FERNANDO ON ARCHIVE: The élite is responsible for the situation as it is and the élite is now waking up to the problem - to the violence.
CHERI HONKALA: Most of us are trying to figure out: how do we hold on to the very little bit that we got? And a lot of us don't even have that little bit.
LESTER THUROW: You're playing with fire when you talk about these kinds of inequalities. Now, nobody knows how far can it go!
CAPTION: 'In the 1990's a group of leading clergymen got together with young people, gang members, drug dealers, prostitutes and the police to tackle the growing crisis of violence in inner-city Boston, USA. Their plan became known as the Boston Ten Point Coalition.'
NEWS REPORTER, WBZ-TV: The Morning Star Baptist Church was filled with several hundred mourners who had gathered to pay their last respects to Robert Otum. Suddenly, without warning, violence broke out inside the church.
POLICE OFFICER: Thirteen to fourteen kids walked in with black hoods on, sat down in the church, er identified one person whom they wanted to have a confrontation with. Er, they pounced on him. Er, he got away from them. Er, he ran around the church. Er, as he was going out of the back of the church, they caught up to him. And I believe that he was stabbed about nine times on various parts of the body.
NEWS REPORTER: The stabbing victim, 21-year-old Jerome Bronson, was taken to Boston City Hospital. His attackers escaped. Two women were hospitalised with minor injuries. Four others were treated at the scene. Police pursued a youth armed with a gun after he fired the weapon outside the church. That suspect escaped on foot, but officers recovered the weapon: a .38 calibre handgun. The funeral disrupted, some of the mourners returned to the Otum family home still in shock.
TEENAGE BOY: He wasn't into no gangs or nothing like that. Just that wrong people met up in the wrong place and that took place there.
2ND TEENAGE BOY: I don't know, man. I don't know. This is incredible.
POLICE OFFICER: I think it's despicable, myself. I think it's an awful thing to do. I think the church is the one place that should be off-limits - and sacred - to any type of violence.
REV. EUGENE RIVERS, Chair, Boston Ten Point Coalition: In the immediate aftermath of the Morning Star incident, about a half a dozen clergymen issued the call for the Ten Point Coalition - what subsequently became the Boston Ten Point Coalition. It comes to a head at the Morning Star because of the established Black Church's refusal to engage this growing crisis of violence. It forced the issue.
HARRIET RUGGS, Steven's Grandmother: Steven is my grandson. He's the son of my oldest daughter. I've had him since he was eight days old. My daughter had some problems with drugs, and therefore I opted to keep Steven. I thought one day that she would be coming back for him - she never did. I went to the Ella J. Baker House, met some of the staff, and heard what they were about, and knew this was the place where Steven should be.
REV. GENE: And the Ella J. Baker House is a sanctuary space to which children can come to find safety, security, and a set of programmatic alternatives to the violence which too frequently scars the emotional and spiritual life of the children of this community.
STEVEN: And this is the Baker House. This is like where we go and hang out at - mostly. It's where I work at.
HARRIET RUGGS: The Ella J. Baker House has helped my baby tremendously. I could just go on and on. They have helped this young man that had no self-esteem have self-esteem. They've helped him to have confidence in himself and what he can do.
STEVEN: It's easy making friends, and you get to learn more things. You get to get more attention on your schoolwork then ever before.
HARRIET RUGGS: I think he feels safe at the Ella J. Baker House because he know what they're all about. There's no one there that's - you know - that they're walking the walk; they're talking the talk and walking the walk. And, and that's the bottom line.
STEVEN: So this is like heaven.
INTERVIEWER: Why is this like heaven?
STEVEN: Because, you know, like, this is like what it says. This is like we're all - like you're coming in and all bad stuff just ends. It's put a stop to it.
INTERVIEWER: So, you're safe here? STEVEN: Yeah, I feel more safe here than outside.
GENE: Children's greatest spiritual need - and this is universally the case - is love.
STEVEN: I owe them my life.
INTERVIEWER: Do you? Why do you owe them your life?
STEVEN: Because if I - if I never seen this place I would have been killed by about now.
KIDS IN CHOIR SINGING: Give Him the glory Give Him the praise Sing hallelujah! Echo His name Give him the glory!
GENE: Children are looking for love and to be loved.
STEVEN: See - it's like this whole building's a body and the Reverend's at the heart of this whole thing.
STEVEN: This is the Reverend's house. This is where I go when, like my parents ain't home and I lost my keys and stuff. This is where I go to chill - is right here.
REV. GENE: They are looking for responsible adults to be moral presences in their lives. And so, what the Church can do is make the decision that it will side with the needs and interests of the poor, and be incarnational.
STEVEN: Like, don't be lazy about the Lord, because He's not somebody to be lazy about. Because he help us. He tells us, like - things out of the bible.
GENE: They will transform the rhetoric and the theology and the discourse of God into God made flesh - living among the children.
STEVEN: He's powerful.
INTERVIEWER: How so?
STEVEN: Because He's over the - He's like, He's good. He does things. He er blesses me. You know, He blesses everybody: bad people, good people, people in gangs, people who worship the devil. You know.
INTERVIEWER: Why do you think He does that? Why do you think He blesses everyone?
STEVEN: Because we're His children.
REV. GENE: So that the children behold God full of grace and truth. Children are looking for love. Love gives meaning so that faith and hope have basis in reality for being attainable. We love the children - I had a twelve-year-old boy threaten to shoot me two days ago. In large measure because his mother has problems. Love says, "Son, I'm going to draw a line. The tough talk is the tough talk of a punk. And because I'm an adult and you're a child I understand that. But I'm now going to draw some lines. You have crossed the line because the very fact that you said that puts you in a difficult place. Alright? And I'm going to love you through this. Now, I'm going to have a conversation with a social worker, a clinical psychologist, and a police officer. And I'm going to send you a message that when you want to sling that kind of rhetoric around, er, we're - we're going to make sure that your butt pays for the cheque you wrote with your mouth!" And we're going to love the child, but we do not mess around. Right? 'Cos we love the child - because the child is about to talk himself into an early grave.
TENY, Street Worker, Boston: One day I'm sitting in a meeting with the Gang Unit. And er, you know, which is - they never, ever allowed before a street worker to sit there, but because of the minister's clout they allowed me to sit there - because we're on the other side. Suddenly I see Daniel's name is becoming the top five people to be picked up that week. And I was like, you know, "No, no, no. This is wrong!" You know - and I'm overruled at that meeting. They're deciding to go and pick him up. They thought that he's one of the main players in this neighbourhood. Now, my policy - if I'm already at that meeting, I'm not going to say about anyone, "Yeah, he is!" But I'm definitely going to say, you know, "No; don't touch this guy." You know, someone that I know for sure - that I can actually go and put my er my whole, my whole credibility on him - I will do that. And that's what I did with Daniel. So they didn't agree to that. He's been working with me. He's been doing incredible stuff - in the summer we hired seventy-seven young people. We're involved in different levels and Daniel emerged as one of the leaders. We gave him a chance and he just ran with it - that's the beauty, you know. He worked overtime on the gardening, on other things - really put a positive attitude into a lot of the young people who were hopeless. And I was like - I'm going to fight for that young man not to be on the top priority of the arrest list for the police. And we managed to overrule that.
DANIEL aged 19: One night the police just came to my house and locked me up. Just because something. They were saying I had a warrant when I didn't. And all of a sudden, when I left - when they, when they picked me up - I went there, next you know, I didn't know till the next day that my house had burned.
KEITH, aged 17: I ain't going to say I never been into it, cause I've been into it - the drug dealing and everything else. But now I got a son, I got to look out for my son and I can't, you know, be selling drugs and getting shot at and everything else. And I'm young too - I'm only seventeen. I can't, you know, I can't be you know, running in the streets all times, all times at night and everything else. So I just, you know, try to maintain - try to keep a positive attitude.
TENY: This area is one of the heaviest patrolled areas in the United States, in terms of law enforcement. Seven years ago it looked like Beirut on many levels. People don't give resources, don't give jobs to young people unless they're forced to. You need someone to force big systems. We need advocates who are big - political - who can play the big roles of fighting. I cannot do that; I don't have the clout. You need people as powerful as the ministers. You need the moral clout of a church or a group of churches. It's very hard for politicians to mess with churches.
PAUL EVANS, Boston Police Commissioner: Fighting violence is everybody's responsibility. And there are - is no group that has the power of the clergy in that battle. We have seen that first-hand in Boston. And to have them as partners in combating violence is just - it's a tremendous impact.
PART TWO
DETECTIVE: If you go into court thinking you're going to get a break and being affiliated with a gang, you're sadly mistaken. Gang warfare out in the streets - you know, shooting each other up - is gone, man. You got too many people that's interested in you. You got - say you got clergy, you got probation, Boston police, state police, school police, housing, ATF, FBI. We got everybody here in Boston, everybody. And just targeting gang members. So you need to think about that, man, you know, before you make the wrong mistake.
PAUL EVANS, Boston Police Commissioner: The police very emphatically say, "We want the violence to stop!" The clergy and the police both send that message, but at the same time we say, "Look - what type of resources can we bring to bear? Can we get jobs for these kids? Can we get them in programs?" And I think that's where this unique partnership has really flourished. It's a recognition by both sides that - you know, the police recognising that the 'lock them up' philosophy is not the solution.
COUNSELLOR: Yeah, so up to now: four hundred and four names looking for jobs. And Pastor Woodbury's compiled some of the information they need additionally: the addresses. And we'll bring it in tomorrow. We'll have more kids looking for jobs, and we'll bring them in as they come in. You had a question back there - yes?
FEMALE COUNSELLOR: I think this is wonderful - just wonderful! And very needed. But my question is: the summer thing is a good thing - I was a youth worker working for the City of Boston for three years, and this was one of the things that I've been trying to work on, and hope that you can address this a little. A summer job is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't teach long-term commitment. I would much rather see a kid in a part-time job over a long period of time than a two-month job, because I think it teaches continuity and stability. And statistics show that when kids get their first job they lose it after a few months. And I don't know if that's tied to the fact that they only work in the summers, but I think it's better for planning, budgeting and teaching them long-term commitment. So I'd like you to just consider and look at that.
REV. BROWN: I want to thank everybody for coming and being a part of the meeting. I'm going to ask Father Best if he will close us out in a word of prayer.
FATHER BEST: Lord, we ask you to send forth your spirit upon us, and continue to recreate us in mind and heart and soul, renew our energies as we work to bring your grace and your peace to your people and to your children. We ask you to inspire people to come forward and to join us in our efforts.
LITTLE GIRL SINGING: 'Worthy is the lamb, The lamb that is saved!'
CARDINAL LAW. Archbishop of Boston: My interest in supporting the Ten Point Coalition emerged with a conviction that it was necessary for clergy to come together in a new configuration to deal with violence in our streets and - more broadly - to deal with violence in our society.
REV. BROWN: You know being young and being black in Boston - it's already hard, right? And I ain't saying that you got to agree with your mom. I mean, look, we were all fifteen years old. You know what I'm saying? We were there! I mean - you know - we understand.
2ND COUNSELLOR: We thought we owned the world!
REV. BROWN: You know? We thought we could live forever! You know - and I mean, I understand. I mean there's - you know, you're growing, man. You're getting older. You're starting to understand. You're starting to be more aware of what the world is all about and whatnot - you know. You know, you're looking at your moms and you realise that, "Well, you know, I got my own two feet I need to stand on!" But brother, you need to do it respectfully. You know what I'm saying? Look at me, brother! Seeing too much. They put the toe tags on. We put them under the ground. Just don't want that to happen to you.
KEITH: You know, when I first started hearing people getting killed in Cambridge, you know - thinking, like, "Cambridge, nobody can get killed out there!" But it happens.
EDDIE HARRIS, Positive Edge, Cambridge: My name is Eddie Harris. I'm the director of Positive Edge in the city of Cambridge. It's a Street Worker programme designed to build relationships with young people in the city and help provide them with the services they may need, that they may not be aware of.
BOY IN HOODED SWEATSHIRT: This is - quote, unquote - "home" for us. You know what I'm saying? Home. This is like, after work you go home. After the camera goes off, he's going home.
WHITE BOY: You don't want to work ten hours a day, come home - you don't want to have family problems in your house, so you come outside. Then you get harassed again by the police. You know - you don't want that on top of the day you had all ready.
EDDIE: That's the point that I raised earlier. Was that this is where they bond. This is where they congregate, because this is where they can get some peace.
WHITE BOY: Well, the police already have a negative - What was the - what was the quote the cop said? You - have a negative look at the police. You know? They should be working to, to turn that around - you know, have a positive effect. You know. It's like it's getting worse if they're going to just treat us with disrespect. Who wants to treat someone with respect if they're treating you with disrespect?
BOY IN BLUE: I just came back from work. I'm tired - I come outside, just to relax, talk to someone. I was with him at seven o'clock in the morning. Then I have a cop coming up to me, telling me to move? You can't - you can't sit there and talk to him?
WHITE BOY: We have said it to them, if we are doing such all these bad things out here, then why when they come through, all they could yell at us about is, "Move out of the way!"
BOY: Exactly.
WHITE BOY: They would treat you all with respect, but they don't show us that respect. They come through like, "Get out of my way!" But if they came right now, "How're you doing? Excuse me." Like that!
EDDIE: That's a good point. And er like I said, I'm going to look into it and uh I'm going to check on it.
WHITE BOY: He said to tell our friends they're going to be out here with - they're going to be out here with all their friends this summer, and they're going to really crack down on us, and stuff like that. I mean, you know - that's unnecessary.
EDDIE: Violence has no discrepancies - it has no distinctions. It happens to everybody, every walk of life, every culture. You know - it's amazing that folks always say or try to attribute it to either African Americans or Latinos or what have you. But here, it's across the board. It's everybody and anybody. So we say, 'Don't believe the hype!' Don't believe it. The churches are involved, that's an important aspect of what we're doing. People say the church is not doing enough - and what more can they do?
Reverend Jeffrey Brown - his emphasis is beyond the four walls of the church. The church is the community. Not on a Sunday morning by listening to his sermon. But to actually take it in hand and go head out and do something! What do you do on the other six days of the week?
REV. JEFFREY BROWN, Union Baptist Church, Cambridge: I've found that I've had some of my most profound theological discussions not in the hallowed halls of some of the seminaries in this area but in the street corners, in a park at midnight on a Friday night. Give you an example: there was this one time, years ago, when we were over in Ripley Park (which is around the corner here) and we were trying to get this group of kids - gang - to stop dealing drugs in the park. There was a kid who was one of the hearts of the gang. And a heart was someone who actually would pack a weapon and shoot and kill. He was guarding the door. The times that we went in there he never spoke to us. But what happened was that one day when we were in there, he came and grabbed one of the ministers there. And then after a few minutes, uh, they came back and we left. We asked the minister what this kid said, and it was unbelievable! He said, "You don't know me. You don't know what I've done, but I've done some pretty bad things." He said, "But all of the things that I've done, I seem to have lost my conscience. I'm wondering if you guys can help me get my conscience back again." Imagine yourself, fifteen years old, you're walking on the street with your boy. Shots ring out - it's a drive by. Your boy gets hit; he goes down; the life drains out of his body. You got questions: "Where is he going? What are we doing? How are we going to get out of this?" These are questions that we can address.
CARDINAL LAW: When I read in the paper about the Ten Point Coalition, I became fascinated by this and called the leaders. In the final analysis, this is a rather simple effort. We need to take hope for what has occurred in South Africa. We need to take hope for what has occurred - is beginning to take place in Ireland. And we have reason to take hope in the Ten Point Coalition and in other similar efforts. It doesn't have a heavy structure - infrastructure. It mainly has men and women of good will and tremendous generosity of spirit, willing to meet young people at risk and help them move into the future with greater hope. It's as simple as that. And er, and I don't think we should hold back because we don't think we're organised well enough, or we don't think we have enough persons, or we don't think we have enough money. We just need to do it with confidence.
END
FERNANDO ON ARCHIVE: The élite is responsible for the situation as it is and the élite is now waking up to the problem - to the violence.
CHERI HONKALA: Most of us are trying to figure out: how do we hold on to the very little bit that we got? And a lot of us don't even have that little bit.
LESTER THUROW: You're playing with fire when you talk about these kinds of inequalities. Now, nobody knows how far can it go!
CAPTION: 'In the 1990's a group of leading clergymen got together with young people, gang members, drug dealers, prostitutes and the police to tackle the growing crisis of violence in inner-city Boston, USA. Their plan became known as the Boston Ten Point Coalition.'
NEWS REPORTER, WBZ-TV: The Morning Star Baptist Church was filled with several hundred mourners who had gathered to pay their last respects to Robert Otum. Suddenly, without warning, violence broke out inside the church.
POLICE OFFICER: Thirteen to fourteen kids walked in with black hoods on, sat down in the church, er identified one person whom they wanted to have a confrontation with. Er, they pounced on him. Er, he got away from them. Er, he ran around the church. Er, as he was going out of the back of the church, they caught up to him. And I believe that he was stabbed about nine times on various parts of the body.
NEWS REPORTER: The stabbing victim, 21-year-old Jerome Bronson, was taken to Boston City Hospital. His attackers escaped. Two women were hospitalised with minor injuries. Four others were treated at the scene. Police pursued a youth armed with a gun after he fired the weapon outside the church. That suspect escaped on foot, but officers recovered the weapon: a .38 calibre handgun. The funeral disrupted, some of the mourners returned to the Otum family home still in shock.
TEENAGE BOY: He wasn't into no gangs or nothing like that. Just that wrong people met up in the wrong place and that took place there.
2ND TEENAGE BOY: I don't know, man. I don't know. This is incredible.
POLICE OFFICER: I think it's despicable, myself. I think it's an awful thing to do. I think the church is the one place that should be off-limits - and sacred - to any type of violence.
REV. EUGENE RIVERS, Chair, Boston Ten Point Coalition: In the immediate aftermath of the Morning Star incident, about a half a dozen clergymen issued the call for the Ten Point Coalition - what subsequently became the Boston Ten Point Coalition. It comes to a head at the Morning Star because of the established Black Church's refusal to engage this growing crisis of violence. It forced the issue.
HARRIET RUGGS, Steven's Grandmother: Steven is my grandson. He's the son of my oldest daughter. I've had him since he was eight days old. My daughter had some problems with drugs, and therefore I opted to keep Steven. I thought one day that she would be coming back for him - she never did. I went to the Ella J. Baker House, met some of the staff, and heard what they were about, and knew this was the place where Steven should be.
REV. GENE: And the Ella J. Baker House is a sanctuary space to which children can come to find safety, security, and a set of programmatic alternatives to the violence which too frequently scars the emotional and spiritual life of the children of this community.
STEVEN: And this is the Baker House. This is like where we go and hang out at - mostly. It's where I work at.
HARRIET RUGGS: The Ella J. Baker House has helped my baby tremendously. I could just go on and on. They have helped this young man that had no self-esteem have self-esteem. They've helped him to have confidence in himself and what he can do.
STEVEN: It's easy making friends, and you get to learn more things. You get to get more attention on your schoolwork then ever before.
HARRIET RUGGS: I think he feels safe at the Ella J. Baker House because he know what they're all about. There's no one there that's - you know - that they're walking the walk; they're talking the talk and walking the walk. And, and that's the bottom line.
STEVEN: So this is like heaven.
INTERVIEWER: Why is this like heaven?
STEVEN: Because, you know, like, this is like what it says. This is like we're all - like you're coming in and all bad stuff just ends. It's put a stop to it.
INTERVIEWER: So, you're safe here? STEVEN: Yeah, I feel more safe here than outside.
GENE: Children's greatest spiritual need - and this is universally the case - is love.
STEVEN: I owe them my life.
INTERVIEWER: Do you? Why do you owe them your life?
STEVEN: Because if I - if I never seen this place I would have been killed by about now.
KIDS IN CHOIR SINGING: Give Him the glory Give Him the praise Sing hallelujah! Echo His name Give him the glory!
GENE: Children are looking for love and to be loved.
STEVEN: See - it's like this whole building's a body and the Reverend's at the heart of this whole thing.
STEVEN: This is the Reverend's house. This is where I go when, like my parents ain't home and I lost my keys and stuff. This is where I go to chill - is right here.
REV. GENE: They are looking for responsible adults to be moral presences in their lives. And so, what the Church can do is make the decision that it will side with the needs and interests of the poor, and be incarnational.
STEVEN: Like, don't be lazy about the Lord, because He's not somebody to be lazy about. Because he help us. He tells us, like - things out of the bible.
GENE: They will transform the rhetoric and the theology and the discourse of God into God made flesh - living among the children.
STEVEN: He's powerful.
INTERVIEWER: How so?
STEVEN: Because He's over the - He's like, He's good. He does things. He er blesses me. You know, He blesses everybody: bad people, good people, people in gangs, people who worship the devil. You know.
INTERVIEWER: Why do you think He does that? Why do you think He blesses everyone?
STEVEN: Because we're His children.
REV. GENE: So that the children behold God full of grace and truth. Children are looking for love. Love gives meaning so that faith and hope have basis in reality for being attainable. We love the children - I had a twelve-year-old boy threaten to shoot me two days ago. In large measure because his mother has problems. Love says, "Son, I'm going to draw a line. The tough talk is the tough talk of a punk. And because I'm an adult and you're a child I understand that. But I'm now going to draw some lines. You have crossed the line because the very fact that you said that puts you in a difficult place. Alright? And I'm going to love you through this. Now, I'm going to have a conversation with a social worker, a clinical psychologist, and a police officer. And I'm going to send you a message that when you want to sling that kind of rhetoric around, er, we're - we're going to make sure that your butt pays for the cheque you wrote with your mouth!" And we're going to love the child, but we do not mess around. Right? 'Cos we love the child - because the child is about to talk himself into an early grave.
TENY, Street Worker, Boston: One day I'm sitting in a meeting with the Gang Unit. And er, you know, which is - they never, ever allowed before a street worker to sit there, but because of the minister's clout they allowed me to sit there - because we're on the other side. Suddenly I see Daniel's name is becoming the top five people to be picked up that week. And I was like, you know, "No, no, no. This is wrong!" You know - and I'm overruled at that meeting. They're deciding to go and pick him up. They thought that he's one of the main players in this neighbourhood. Now, my policy - if I'm already at that meeting, I'm not going to say about anyone, "Yeah, he is!" But I'm definitely going to say, you know, "No; don't touch this guy." You know, someone that I know for sure - that I can actually go and put my er my whole, my whole credibility on him - I will do that. And that's what I did with Daniel. So they didn't agree to that. He's been working with me. He's been doing incredible stuff - in the summer we hired seventy-seven young people. We're involved in different levels and Daniel emerged as one of the leaders. We gave him a chance and he just ran with it - that's the beauty, you know. He worked overtime on the gardening, on other things - really put a positive attitude into a lot of the young people who were hopeless. And I was like - I'm going to fight for that young man not to be on the top priority of the arrest list for the police. And we managed to overrule that.
DANIEL aged 19: One night the police just came to my house and locked me up. Just because something. They were saying I had a warrant when I didn't. And all of a sudden, when I left - when they, when they picked me up - I went there, next you know, I didn't know till the next day that my house had burned.
KEITH, aged 17: I ain't going to say I never been into it, cause I've been into it - the drug dealing and everything else. But now I got a son, I got to look out for my son and I can't, you know, be selling drugs and getting shot at and everything else. And I'm young too - I'm only seventeen. I can't, you know, I can't be you know, running in the streets all times, all times at night and everything else. So I just, you know, try to maintain - try to keep a positive attitude.
TENY: This area is one of the heaviest patrolled areas in the United States, in terms of law enforcement. Seven years ago it looked like Beirut on many levels. People don't give resources, don't give jobs to young people unless they're forced to. You need someone to force big systems. We need advocates who are big - political - who can play the big roles of fighting. I cannot do that; I don't have the clout. You need people as powerful as the ministers. You need the moral clout of a church or a group of churches. It's very hard for politicians to mess with churches.
PAUL EVANS, Boston Police Commissioner: Fighting violence is everybody's responsibility. And there are - is no group that has the power of the clergy in that battle. We have seen that first-hand in Boston. And to have them as partners in combating violence is just - it's a tremendous impact.
PART TWO
DETECTIVE: If you go into court thinking you're going to get a break and being affiliated with a gang, you're sadly mistaken. Gang warfare out in the streets - you know, shooting each other up - is gone, man. You got too many people that's interested in you. You got - say you got clergy, you got probation, Boston police, state police, school police, housing, ATF, FBI. We got everybody here in Boston, everybody. And just targeting gang members. So you need to think about that, man, you know, before you make the wrong mistake.
PAUL EVANS, Boston Police Commissioner: The police very emphatically say, "We want the violence to stop!" The clergy and the police both send that message, but at the same time we say, "Look - what type of resources can we bring to bear? Can we get jobs for these kids? Can we get them in programs?" And I think that's where this unique partnership has really flourished. It's a recognition by both sides that - you know, the police recognising that the 'lock them up' philosophy is not the solution.
COUNSELLOR: Yeah, so up to now: four hundred and four names looking for jobs. And Pastor Woodbury's compiled some of the information they need additionally: the addresses. And we'll bring it in tomorrow. We'll have more kids looking for jobs, and we'll bring them in as they come in. You had a question back there - yes?
FEMALE COUNSELLOR: I think this is wonderful - just wonderful! And very needed. But my question is: the summer thing is a good thing - I was a youth worker working for the City of Boston for three years, and this was one of the things that I've been trying to work on, and hope that you can address this a little. A summer job is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't teach long-term commitment. I would much rather see a kid in a part-time job over a long period of time than a two-month job, because I think it teaches continuity and stability. And statistics show that when kids get their first job they lose it after a few months. And I don't know if that's tied to the fact that they only work in the summers, but I think it's better for planning, budgeting and teaching them long-term commitment. So I'd like you to just consider and look at that.
REV. BROWN: I want to thank everybody for coming and being a part of the meeting. I'm going to ask Father Best if he will close us out in a word of prayer.
FATHER BEST: Lord, we ask you to send forth your spirit upon us, and continue to recreate us in mind and heart and soul, renew our energies as we work to bring your grace and your peace to your people and to your children. We ask you to inspire people to come forward and to join us in our efforts.
LITTLE GIRL SINGING: 'Worthy is the lamb, The lamb that is saved!'
CARDINAL LAW. Archbishop of Boston: My interest in supporting the Ten Point Coalition emerged with a conviction that it was necessary for clergy to come together in a new configuration to deal with violence in our streets and - more broadly - to deal with violence in our society.
REV. BROWN: You know being young and being black in Boston - it's already hard, right? And I ain't saying that you got to agree with your mom. I mean, look, we were all fifteen years old. You know what I'm saying? We were there! I mean - you know - we understand.
2ND COUNSELLOR: We thought we owned the world!
REV. BROWN: You know? We thought we could live forever! You know - and I mean, I understand. I mean there's - you know, you're growing, man. You're getting older. You're starting to understand. You're starting to be more aware of what the world is all about and whatnot - you know. You know, you're looking at your moms and you realise that, "Well, you know, I got my own two feet I need to stand on!" But brother, you need to do it respectfully. You know what I'm saying? Look at me, brother! Seeing too much. They put the toe tags on. We put them under the ground. Just don't want that to happen to you.
KEITH: You know, when I first started hearing people getting killed in Cambridge, you know - thinking, like, "Cambridge, nobody can get killed out there!" But it happens.
EDDIE HARRIS, Positive Edge, Cambridge: My name is Eddie Harris. I'm the director of Positive Edge in the city of Cambridge. It's a Street Worker programme designed to build relationships with young people in the city and help provide them with the services they may need, that they may not be aware of.
BOY IN HOODED SWEATSHIRT: This is - quote, unquote - "home" for us. You know what I'm saying? Home. This is like, after work you go home. After the camera goes off, he's going home.
WHITE BOY: You don't want to work ten hours a day, come home - you don't want to have family problems in your house, so you come outside. Then you get harassed again by the police. You know - you don't want that on top of the day you had all ready.
EDDIE: That's the point that I raised earlier. Was that this is where they bond. This is where they congregate, because this is where they can get some peace.
WHITE BOY: Well, the police already have a negative - What was the - what was the quote the cop said? You - have a negative look at the police. You know? They should be working to, to turn that around - you know, have a positive effect. You know. It's like it's getting worse if they're going to just treat us with disrespect. Who wants to treat someone with respect if they're treating you with disrespect?
BOY IN BLUE: I just came back from work. I'm tired - I come outside, just to relax, talk to someone. I was with him at seven o'clock in the morning. Then I have a cop coming up to me, telling me to move? You can't - you can't sit there and talk to him?
WHITE BOY: We have said it to them, if we are doing such all these bad things out here, then why when they come through, all they could yell at us about is, "Move out of the way!"
BOY: Exactly.
WHITE BOY: They would treat you all with respect, but they don't show us that respect. They come through like, "Get out of my way!" But if they came right now, "How're you doing? Excuse me." Like that!
EDDIE: That's a good point. And er like I said, I'm going to look into it and uh I'm going to check on it.
WHITE BOY: He said to tell our friends they're going to be out here with - they're going to be out here with all their friends this summer, and they're going to really crack down on us, and stuff like that. I mean, you know - that's unnecessary.
EDDIE: Violence has no discrepancies - it has no distinctions. It happens to everybody, every walk of life, every culture. You know - it's amazing that folks always say or try to attribute it to either African Americans or Latinos or what have you. But here, it's across the board. It's everybody and anybody. So we say, 'Don't believe the hype!' Don't believe it. The churches are involved, that's an important aspect of what we're doing. People say the church is not doing enough - and what more can they do?
Reverend Jeffrey Brown - his emphasis is beyond the four walls of the church. The church is the community. Not on a Sunday morning by listening to his sermon. But to actually take it in hand and go head out and do something! What do you do on the other six days of the week?
REV. JEFFREY BROWN, Union Baptist Church, Cambridge: I've found that I've had some of my most profound theological discussions not in the hallowed halls of some of the seminaries in this area but in the street corners, in a park at midnight on a Friday night. Give you an example: there was this one time, years ago, when we were over in Ripley Park (which is around the corner here) and we were trying to get this group of kids - gang - to stop dealing drugs in the park. There was a kid who was one of the hearts of the gang. And a heart was someone who actually would pack a weapon and shoot and kill. He was guarding the door. The times that we went in there he never spoke to us. But what happened was that one day when we were in there, he came and grabbed one of the ministers there. And then after a few minutes, uh, they came back and we left. We asked the minister what this kid said, and it was unbelievable! He said, "You don't know me. You don't know what I've done, but I've done some pretty bad things." He said, "But all of the things that I've done, I seem to have lost my conscience. I'm wondering if you guys can help me get my conscience back again." Imagine yourself, fifteen years old, you're walking on the street with your boy. Shots ring out - it's a drive by. Your boy gets hit; he goes down; the life drains out of his body. You got questions: "Where is he going? What are we doing? How are we going to get out of this?" These are questions that we can address.
CARDINAL LAW: When I read in the paper about the Ten Point Coalition, I became fascinated by this and called the leaders. In the final analysis, this is a rather simple effort. We need to take hope for what has occurred in South Africa. We need to take hope for what has occurred - is beginning to take place in Ireland. And we have reason to take hope in the Ten Point Coalition and in other similar efforts. It doesn't have a heavy structure - infrastructure. It mainly has men and women of good will and tremendous generosity of spirit, willing to meet young people at risk and help them move into the future with greater hope. It's as simple as that. And er, and I don't think we should hold back because we don't think we're organised well enough, or we don't think we have enough persons, or we don't think we have enough money. We just need to do it with confidence.
END