The NJ reports that Councilman Kevin Kelley, Councilman Sam Prado, Father Mike Tyson of St. Paul Church and Reverend Christopher Bullock, pastor of Canaan Baptist Church have organized a march on Wilmington’s West Side to honor Dr. King and to “promote racial harmony and nonviolence in the city” today.
I have alot of respect for these men organizing this thing and the ones I know personally I do know absolutely have their hearts in the right place. The violence in the city is on the rise, gang activity from serious nationwide players is increasing, and entire neighborhoods feel under siege. But a march — right here and right now — just seems to be an inadequate (and even quaint) response to what appears to have become an epidemic in the city.
This is a tough criticism to make, because the people doing this seriously want to do something to address this and the avenues available to them are fairly limited. So this is not a criticism of their motives, but of their methods. Here in the 21st century USA, marches rarely longer capture the attention or provide the kind of inspiration that they once did. It is well known that the real power in any gathering of citizens is in how they can translate their very valid concerns into some action that pressures politicians or corporations or whoever into doing something different. And in Wilmington, getting the citizens to do something is really the challenge.
A march is good for some publicity, but marching bypasses the effort to make MLK Day into a nationwide day of service. Instead of marching, why not commandeer the Chase Center for a day-long community-based Hope Commission Meeting? This meeting, however, would completely bypass the currently impotent official Commission and convene citizens and community leaders in a charrette-type process to identify community needs and to develop solutions. At the end of the day, you have a list of community-generated needs and solutions and a place for City Council to start implementing (or supporting community organizations to implement) solutions. Do this yearly to measure progress towards goals and to develop new ones. Done well, this is the stuff that a new mayor can be made of. Or how about a day long Community Policing Training? Get started on working on not just training and community watch skills, but trust-building with the WPD with the portions of the community who don’t want to work with the police in order to build community that might work with the WPD to get issues addressed. Or how about a major presentation by the City Council on the redeployment plan that they’ve devised to citizens, accompanied by a structured campaign to pressure the Mayor and Chief Szczerba to do something different.
These are just off of the top of my head and there are likely better ideas out there. But the point remains –we have to remind ourselves on this MLK Day that raising awareness is no longer enough. We live here, we know we’ve a crisis on our hands. Citizens have to be moved and empowered well past awareness to some action to help make our communities better. I believe that Kevin Kelley actually knows this — and I challenge him and Sam Prado to think more strategically about community action and empowerment.