A diverse group of clergymen and civic leaders who gathered in the District on Wednesday said nothing short of a spiritual renaissance is needed to stem the tide of street violence in the region fueled by aimless young people.
Pastors and imams from churches such as Bethel Christian Fellowship and Adams Inspirational AME Church met with Nation of Islam disciples in Anacostia to promote a message specifically tailored to the teens and young adults behind the bloodshed: Learn who you are so that you can learn about the innate divinity bestowed to you by God.
The religious leaders say they are trying to address an “identity crisis” created in young people when parents don’t take responsibility for their children — allowing kids to be consumed by the disputes that often precede slayings.
“Our young people are going through this crisis because they have basically been left to grow up on their own,” said George Stallings of the Imani Temple African American Catholic Congregation in Suitland, Maryland.
“They don’t have models,” he continued. “They don’t have mentors who are saying to them that ‘This is what is important in life.’ Where are your priorities? Where are your values? I don’t think parents are talking to their children about values — about their identity.”
Mr. Stallings mentioned one way to impart this lesson to young people is to stop them from introducing themselves by saying “My name is.” Instead, they should say “I am” — a nod to Exodus 3:14 where God introduces himself to Moses as “I am who I am.”
It’s a small way of linking their identity with God, one that the clergyman said he shared with a young man prior to Wednesday morning’s meeting.
The faith leaders acknowledged it’s an uphill fight against a culture that has contributed to a 20-year high in killings throughout the District.
The nation’s capital is on track to exceed 200 homicides for the third year in a row, with 2023 proving to be the most violent yet. When the District hit the 100-homicide mark in June, it was the fastest the city had reached that grim milestone since 2003.
The violence continues as political and civic leaders scramble for solutions.
D.C. police arrested and charged a man Monday in the May killing of 10-year-old Arianna Davis.
The girl was riding the back of a car in Northeast when a stray bullet struck her in the chest. She died days later in the hospital.
Koran Gregory, the 19-year-old murder suspect, lived in a home where police found an arsenal of illegal weapons, according to court documents.
The leaders at Wednesday’s meeting said reaching young offenders before they become hardened criminals can only happen when they earn the trust of their flock.
That can only come, the pastors and imams said, from meeting the troubled youths where they are.
“Our leader, Jesus Christ, took the love in the church to the people,” Reverend Rick Seavron, from Allen Chapel AME Church on Alabama Avenue Southeast, said during the gathering. “When the people trust those leaders, then you’re able to lead.”
Community advocates at the meeting said city resources dedicated to reaching those at-risk of violence are falling short.
Tyrone Parker, executive director of the nonprofit Alliance of Concerned Men, said the District’s ecosystem of violence interrupters and other support programs aren’t collaborating with each other to squash the blood feuds.
The various city services are functioning in “silos,” he said, and their inefficiency is exacerbating the sense of hopelessness on the streets.
That’s why others in attendance, such as Dyrell Muhammad, said he’s cutting out the middle man and going right to the young people who need him.
The Nation of Islam follower and convicted murderer was released in 2020 as part of the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act.
He told The Times he was able to settle conflicts between gangs while in the federal prison system for 22 years, and now he’s trying to take that skillset to those in the District who may follow his path.
“You’re not going to be able to relate to them if you don’t go amongst them,” Muhammad, who legally changed his last name from Gamble in 2021, said at the meeting. “That’s just like a doctor trying to prescribe medication for a patient he’s never seen. This is why I use the terminology ‘hustling the death of our people.’ … Many of us are getting the money, but the resources are not given to our people.”
E. Gail Anderson Holness, the senior pastor for Adams Inspirational in Fort Washington, Maryland, bemoaned other aspects of the broken culture the faith leaders are trying to repair.
That included people abusing stronger and stronger drugs, the loss of the “village” feel in neighborhoods and a scourge of mental illness, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder, from being exposed to so much violence.
These local problems are cropping up because of the broader degradation of values across the country, according to Reverend Zagery Oliver.
The vice president of the Universal Peace Federation in the District said a lack of love — for their fellow man, as well as from their fathers — is why teens and young adults are glamorizing immorality. This upside-down value system is what’s created more dysfunctional families, and as a result, more violence.
Mr. Stallings said the only way to correct that trend is to realize who we are as “holy beings” — not just as physical beings.
“I’m just not simply flesh and blood…I’m a vessel, I’m a conduit, I’m a medium” of God’s will, he told The Washington Times.
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