CeaseFire march, rally brings anti-violence forces together in South Linden

 

 

By Felix Hoover

For Your News Columbus

Aug. 28, 2010

 

 

The CeaseFire Columbus program in the South Linden area is one the many recent efforts to mobilize communities against violence.

 

Many of the speakers in the lot across from Travelers Rest Baptist Church on Cleveland Avenue shared some of the horror stories about senseless killings that shatter families and terrorize neighborhoods.

 

Representatives from Crime Stoppers, Unsolved Mysteries, insurance companies and funeral home provided dour reminders of what happens when people, especially young people, make bad choices about their own lives and the lives of friends, families and strangers.

 

Parents who have lost children to violence called on the throng to remember the losses and to act in ways that encourage life. That message includes a reminder that innocent bystanders can become victims and “You don’t have to be a bad person to get killed,”

 

The gathering, however, wasn’t merely a reflection of the negative, but an assembly of what’s right as organizers called for a weekend without violence.

 

Law-enforcement officers were visible, as were politicians and religious leaders, but so were families, bikers, food vendors, boys showing off for girls, children eating hot dogs, and folks seeking shade. There were people of all ages; people wearing suits; people wearing shorts; people reuniting with old friends.

 

Seventh-grader Steven Henry, a trumpeter in the Linden McKinley Panthers Marching Band, seemed at ease with his peers and others who had marched along Cleveland Avenue from E. 26^th Avenue the church.

 

Pastor Steven Price of Mount Zion Apostolic Holiness Church on the West Side said that the march was merely to get people’s attention.

 

“We’ve got to take it to the next level,” he said.

 

Although rallies attract crowds, caring people in the community must be willing to carry the anti-violence message to people at their homes as well, Price said

 

Chicago native Kirby Mitchell, 45, heard some of the hoopla from the sidewalk in front of an apartment on Windsor Avenue. He said he was going to slip on shoes to join the action.

 

“It‘s nice to see the community working together,” he said. “It gives light to children in a period of darkness.”

 

He familiar with the CeaseFire program, which is based in Chicago and has helped turn around some of its communities.

 

Mitchell said he wants to start a youth counseling program in the Linden area, but realizes that it‘s not a part-time venture. Nor is it something that can successfully be done on a 9-to-5 schedule.

 

“It’s an every second thing,” he said. “We need to have enough people available 24 hours a day to counseling youths when they need it.”