Since these guys started walking the streets, violent crime is down 30% in Philly. They believe at least part of that decline is attributable to these guys.
"We Need the Men to Come Back"
Writer KIA GREGORY reports on a group of men determined to bring male role models back to the neighborhoods that need them most.
by Kia Gregory
A little past 5 o'clock on a hot and humid July afternoon, a dozen members of a group that calls itself Men United for a Better Philadelphia gathers at its headquarters, a weathered, white-washed mansion on the fringes of Fairmount Park.
The men who belong to this group--some 300 strong--are mostly black--fathers and grandfathers, brothers and uncles. Some are graying, others balding. Some wear shirts that stretch over round paunches.
In them is a wisdom and concern for the sons, grandsons, brothers, nephews and cousins hustling their lives away on worn-out street corners.
The men sit in a circle of chairs in a spacious room decorated with African sculptures, paintings and colorful mud cloths. They're about to be briefed on the night's assignment.
"This has been a bad week, boy," says Mayo, yellow-tinted glasses resting on top of his head as he wipes the sweat from his brow. "I was watching the TV ... "
"Was there another shooting in Grays Ferry?" asks Mark, a stout man with a gravelly voice.
Mayo nods.
The men are referring to Joey Smith, a 14-year-old who was randomly shot in the neck as he was sitting on his front stoop.
As they talk, the wail of sirens can be heard moving down Girard Avenue.
"We're burning daylight," says Ray, eager to get on the street. "Let's hit it."
Every Wednesday night the Men United members, sporting T-shirts and baseball caps emblazoned with their logo, go to street corners to convince young black men there's an alternative to drugs and crime.
Tonight they'll respond to a call from a West Philadelphia committeewoman who's being taunted by young men on the corner. She says the playful boys she watched grow up now peddle crack and weed in the community.
The men leave their Fairmount Park headquarters and pile into three cars parked outside.
They ride caravan-style, flashers on, a navy minivan with "MEN UNITED FOR A BETTER PHILADELPHIA" in white letters on its sides leading the way. Two loudspeakers mounted on the van's roof squawk Men United's bluesy theme song, which begins with a chant of "Stop the Violence!":
These are really scary times that we're livin' in
It's no longer safe to walk the street
Without being fearful that someone may take your life
For nothin' more than Reeboks on your feet.
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To be born black and male in this country is to be a descendent of great kings and queens. You walk through doors kicked open by civil rights heroes, many of whom gave their lives. Your history is rich and proud.
To be black and male is also to be presented with a dizzying array of potential role models--from Martin Luther King to Russell Simmons, from Allen Iverson to Tiger Woods, from Denzel to Tupac, from 50 Cent to Barack Obama.
But to be black and male in America also means you'll be confronted with historical and sociological burdens that put your manhood at constant risk. The potential landmines that can blow up a successful life can be traced to the plague of drugs and gangs, to welfare and white flight, to racism and all the way back to slavery.
In Philadelphia today, the unemployment rate for black men is double that of white men. The poverty rate is double as well, which can make being the head of a family a crushing burden.
Almost 79 percent of black children in Philadelphia are born to single women. These women have to be both mother and father, nurturer and provider. The numbers show that black girls in Philadelphia are more likely to remain caught in the cycle of poverty and single motherhood.
Black males in Philadelphia are more likely to drop out of school and be poor and unemployed than be educated and financially successful. They're far more likely to spend time in prison than white men, and twice as likely to fall victim to violent crime--including murder.
Some look at these harsh statistics and conclude that it's racism that denies black men the two necessary tools--education and jobs--to lead their families.
Some see that as an excuse for reckless behavior.
Others, meanwhile, see shades of gray.
The members of Men United believe that only a father--or a father figure--can teach a boy to be a man.
"We can't drop the ball, even if society does," says Men United co-chair Malik Aziz. "Black men must take a leadership role in the black community, because we're losing. All across the board, we're losing."
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For the predominantly black neighborhoods of North Philadelphia, from Poplar Street to Lehigh Avenue, from 10th Street to 33rd, 2000 was a violent year.
In those communities, represented by the 22nd and 23rd police districts, homicides were on the rise, and neighbors complained of rampant shootings and drug trafficking.
On New Year's Day 2002, Malik Aziz, head of the Ex-Offenders Association of Pennsylvania, an advocacy group, delivered an urgent message: We must stop this.
He called police commissioner Sylvester Johnson.
He called Bilal Qayyum, president of the Father's Day Rally Committee.
He alerted likeminded activists, like Ray Jones and Mark Harrell, and that Wednesday some 50 men showed up at the Fairmount Park mansion that served as the Father's Day Rally Committee's headquarters.
The group was a diverse mix of professional and blue-collar workers, politicians, activists, ex-cops and ex-cons. They huddled for hours and came to one conclusion: Black men had abandoned the black community. The violence bloodying our streets was the result.
They formed Men United for a Better Philadelphia under the mantra, "Brothers Gonna Work It Out."
It remains today one of the few antiviolence groups in the city led by black men, for black men.
The group has a threefold agenda: Presence. Shut down. Recruit.
There are three full-time staff members, funded by a Department of Human Services grant. Everyone else in Men United is a volunteer.
When they raid drug-infested street corners, they come with job opportunities, G.E.D. programs, drug counseling, health services and parenting workshops for the city's most marginalized residents--young black men.
"Basically, we're trying to say to these guys, 'You ain't got to be on the corner,'" says Men United co-chair Bilal Qayyum. "'If you got an excuse, we got the answer for your excuse.'"
Men United is not an organization, members are quick to say. It's a movement, and a desperately needed one--141 blacks have been murdered in Philadelphia so far this year.
More than 80 percent of the city's homicide victims are black men.
It's this kind of violence that sparks Men United's resolve and gives them purpose. It's why, before they leave a corner, they pray.
"When we break with prayer, it feels so good," says Mark Harrell, Men United's director. "Those are corners that a prayer is gonna be given, as opposed to some gunshots."
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Men United is led by men--fathers and grandfathers--who remember a time when black men were pillars of the community.
When Aziz was 12, his father moved to Boston. Shortly after, he started hanging with gangs in North Philly, where older men tried to mentor him off the street corners. But Aziz wouldn't listen.
Aziz started selling drugs, a decision that landed him in prison for 10 years. While behind bars, he made three promises to himself:
He would never return to prison.
He would build relationships with his four children.
He would work to prevent violence.
In prison, he says, it was the lifers who convinced him he was wasting his life selling drugs. He possessed great organizational and communication skills, they told him. And he was motivated. He could be so much more. Aziz says he finally humbled himself enough to listen.
"My tolerance for negativity allowed me to get into that situation," he says. "But my determination for something better allowed me to get out."
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Bilal Qayyum remembers when neighbors were like extended families. Every child on his block had a father at home.
Today, he says, that's no longer the norm.
"Our biggest struggle is recreating neighborhoods and families," he says. "We got to go back and do that nitty-gritty organizing, block by block, family by family. Because if the families aren't together, the neighborhoods are going to crumble."
When Men United co-chair Ray Jones was growing up on Ridge Avenue in North Philly, he and his friends would pretend that Mr. Blocker, a neighborhood man who was always fixing cars, was their father. Mr. Blocker worked hard and always had a word.
"There was always an old-head somewhere," he says. "Now, not only aren't they there, but if an old-head is there, he's a cat coming to buy drugs. So you got young men on the corner trying to teach each other how to be men. But they can't because they don't know how."
Growing up in West Philly, Mark Harrell says most of his friends didn't have fathers at home.
It was exactly that circumstance that attracted many young black men to gangs that warred on the streets in the '70s.
Harrell recalls two slogans he believes tell the story of that particular era of crisis: "NO GANG WAR IN '74" and "STAY ALIVE IN '75."
Harrell says families rallied and united against the violence, and by 1976 gang-related homicide was down to zero. "That goes to show that we can make our neighborhoods safe," he says. "Men need to get their sons off the corners and through life."
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In 2002, the group's first year, Men United targeted 22 corners in North Philadelphia. When they began knocking on doors, distributing literature and speaking out on drug corners, the women in the neighborhoods would stand on their porches and applaud for them with tears in their eyes.
On bitter cold days, the women supplied coffee and muffins.
On hot summer days, they provided cold water.
But not everyone was happy to see them.
Some drug dealers would tuck their hands in their shirts as though they might draw a gun.
"Man, I ain't trying to hear that shit," they would spit. And more directly, "Get the fuck out of here."
The drug dealers didn't like anyone interrupting commerce, even if only for a few hours.
But Men United occupied hot spots for months. Once things cooled, they'd turn the operation over to block captains, town watch organizations and committed neighbors.
"Drug dealers get paid to stand on the corner," says Jones. "I don't. I'm motivated by something much higher. If we reach one brutha and get him to rethink his position, that's one life we saved, and maybe more."
One night when the Men United members were out working, they saw a drug gang on a corner counting a wad of money.
One of the gang members looked Jones up and down as he walked over. Jones went into his pitch: "I'm from Men United ... There's options for you."
The gang member told Jones no one had ever been there for him. He never wanted to sell drugs, he said, his voice rising. But he had to make it on his own.
"He was articulate; he was charismatic," says Jones, remembering, "but he was so angry."
"If I woulda saw you two years ago," he told Jones, "I wouldn't be on this corner."
There are success stories. In the last few months Men United says it's placed 30 men in full-time jobs. And its gun buy-back program, funded by local businesses Sneaker Villa and Cash Today Financial Center, has pulled 917 guns off the street. Members also tell of meeting young men who want to change their lives--like the former dealer who's now headed to culinary arts school and the kid who now sells his rap music instead of crack while earning his G.E.D.
Starting next month Men United will send street teams to targeted areas in Germantown, North, South, Southwest and West Philadelphia every day. The group also plans to expand into the Latino community, and to further flung communities in crisis, like those in Chester, Camden and Atlantic City.
They realize they can't save everyone.
"There's two folks we meet on the street corners," says Jones. "The hardcore guys headed for the graveyard or prison. We can't reach them. We're not deluding ourselves. But then there are guys on the periphery. Maybe they're looking for something different. Those are the guys we're trying to reach."
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