On September 23, 2021, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf visited a West Philadelphia branch of the YMCA. There he led a press conference calling for 501c3 groups to apply for “millions of dollars in anti-violence initiative grants.” Why didn’t he just mandate who could get them? He has been quick on the draw with mandates. Why not now? The spike in street shootings is off the charts. This is an emergency. The citizens of Philadelphia, especially the children, don’t have time to wait on a grant application process for relief. Wolf’s press conference was nothing but hypocrisy on top of crap.
It is an open secret, though paradoxically no one really wants to talk about it publicly, that Governor Wolf’s tyrannical and dictatorial response to the Covid-19 Pandemic through his lockdowns, shutdowns, mask-wearing, social distancing mandates, are major contributors to the increase in people shooting each other and to also, more children committing suicides or wanting to. Fortunately, the majority of Pennsylvanian citizens did not agree with Governor Wolf’s Pandemic directives and voted on May 21, 2021, to take those powers away from him. It is going to require patience to recover and heal from the damage his directives have caused.
Including his politically correct but historically and culturally incorrect response to the Black on Black People Gun Violence here in Philadelphia.
During the 1960s and into the ’70s, Philadelphia was plagued with spikes in Black on Black Gangwar Violence. Some years saw around sixty-plus deaths, mainly from knife wounds. Coincidentally, during this same period, Black Philadelphia was experiencing unprecedented growth in racial pride and success in various Collective Work and Responsibility (Ujima) projects, stemming from local Black Power and Progress Movement Initiatives. Hmm. Anyway, some great men said enough is enough and mustered the courage and care to confront gang leaders and members face to face to help them “give peace a chance.” Without 501c3 funds or support.
People like the late great “Guy with the Goods,” Georgie Woods, who would often quickly leave his daily radio show to meet with gang leaders to help them give peace a chance. He did this often. Yes, he got frustrated with the lack of support, but he kept on. Eventually, he got many warring gangs to declare a truce. Some gang groups just outright dissolved.
Then there is the late Herman Wrice, founder of the Young Great Society. A small basement headquarter movement he started in the Tioga neighborhood before moving it to Mantua. I personally saw him, many times, lead peace promotion discussions and events with warring gang members in the Tioga neighborhood.
Consider the work of the late great Reverend Melvin Floyd, also a former police officer. Many people did not take him seriously because he drove around in a hearse signifying the consequences of gang warring and drug use. Yet, he also led many warring gangs together in dialogue and, at times, achieved success with getting gangs to declare a truce.
What about the late great Marcus Foster! One time Gratz High principal from 1966-1969. Before his arrival, it was arguably the most violent school in the Philadelphia School District. During his tenure, he was able to miraculously transform Gratz High School from an urban school daily battleground to a place where true learning could take place in an atmosphere of peace. Elite forces recognized his greatness. They offered him a position as Superintendent of the city of Oakland, California School District. There he was subsequently and mysteriously murdered by members of a government-sponsored allegedly anti-government terrorist group in 1973.
What about others such as the former Principal of Germantown High from 1968-1972, the years I attended, and the Police Officer assigned to the school on a permanent basis. Gtown was a notorious hotbed of warring gang activity. Regularly and almost daily, you would see the two of them running around the school’s perimeter after school, either preventing a gang war skirmish or breaking up ones that already started. There were at least five different warring gangs at Germantown High School, and I do not recall one death in or around the school during that time.
What about other unsung heroes like my uncle, the late Robert Batchelor? A felon ex-con given the job of Director of Security at Olney High School in the early ’70s. With a one-punch knockout reputation, he was able to keep the peace at Olney High School that, to my knowledge, no other predominately Black High School in Philadelphia enjoyed during that period.
What is the point? These men did not have organizational support. They did not have government funds. They did not have any accredited anti-violence strategies to work with. They were not concerned with being a part of any coalition. They did not wait for more “resources” from Harrisburg! What they did have was a vast amount of courage to confront, admittedly, very dangerous men with love and concern in order to give peace a chance.
How about a personal example? Certainly not on the level of the great men described above but an example nonetheless of seizing the moment in peace promotion.
Sometime in May past, after walking one of my sons to a Septa Bus stop and returning to my house, there was a man in the middle of the block of Willows Street, between 55th and 56th street yelling at his driver compatriot to get back in the car. The car was stopped in the middle of the two-lane street. At the other end of the street, a man was standing on the steps of his corner house hollering at the driver near me standing outside of his car. He was yelling back. I stopped walking. Suddenly the man at the other corner started shooting at the driver. I fell to the ground to protect myself. So did the driver’s friend. The car driver took out a gun he was carrying and returned fire. When it stopped, I got up off the ground and yelled at the friend, “You are doing the right thing. Get your friend in the car!” The driver then turned and looked at me, and for a long moment, I was looking, wondering, to see if he was going to shoot at me. In the meantime, his friend was yelling at him and nudging his driver friend to get in the car. He did. The friend rushed to the other side and got into the passenger side, and mentally maybe telepathically, I said to him that he was a hero.
It is flesh and blood, people, not 501c3 corporations, that should lead the peace movement here in Philadelphia. Our history proves it.
