New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
‘We want our streets back’
Residents march through Fair Haven, calling for end to violence
NEW HAVEN — A crowd strode through Fair Haven Tuesday night, led by young people, calling for violence to give way to peace in the neighborhood and the city beyond.
The rally and march, organized by youth anti-violence group Ice the Beef, was held after a recent spate of shootings in Fair Haven, which prompted a community meeting last Friday, and an increase in gun violence across New Haven, which has seen 22 homicides so far this year, more than in all of 2020.
Before those in attendance set off from
the John S. Martinez School on James Street, Catherine Wicks, youth vice president of Ice the Beef, offered a spoken word poem, speaking to the commonality and impact of the gunfire in her life and those of her peers.
She raised the image of going to the grocery store, to school, to the library, and ending up facing a gun.
“Get down on the ground; lay on your stomach! Don’t move! I went to the store for groceries; I forgot the paper towels. Will I see my family again? My Mom is calling. What are you doing? Please don’t shoot — bang!” Wicks intoned as part of the poem. “America, you’ve got the bullet in the chamber. Are you pointing the gun at me? I’m only 17... America, you may have been the land of freedom, but now you’re just the land of guns.”
The crowd gathered shoulder to shoulder before setting off down Wolcott Street. It featured local politicians — state Rep.
Juan Candelaria, D-New Haven; Alder Jose Crespo, D-16; and Alder Ron Hurt, D-3, spoke during the proceedings — members of Black Lives Matter New Haven, residents and youths, among others.
As they walked, the marchers raised chants, claiming ownership of the streets of the city, calling for justice, demanding peace without delay. People watched from their stoops, alert to the commotion; some raised phones to record the parade; a group of young children, playing in the Murray Place housing development, stopped and stared.
The crowd turned onto Blatchley Avenue; New Haven police slipped in ahead of the crowd, blocking traffic to allow the procession to continue unimpeded.
The calls for peace continued; the crowd broke into song briefly, singing “we want our streets back / we want our streets back / hey, hey, hey / we want them now” to the tune of “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Good Bye” by Steam; they stopped to pray over intersections in the neighborhood. Crespo’s voice grew hoarse as he led the call and response.
As the march reached its conclusion, Manuel Camacho, the youth president of Ice the Beef and lead organizer of the rally, likened the work against gun violence to water wearing away a rock.
The rock would not break immediately, he said, but over time, it will crack — “all that water is stronger than the rock will ever be.”
“When community comes together, things happen. That is the only way we can bring the change we want. But it depends on each and every single one of you here today, and the ones who are not here,” said Camacho. “Understand, when we’re united together, that shows... strength, more than anything else in this world.”
Remidy Shareef, director of outreach with Ice the Beef, urged those in attendance to transcend the limitations of our base selves and come together in the name of love, including for the young people of the city.
Life in America has included oppression and trauma, bloodshed and war, he said. Young people, raised in that tradition, needed to be shown something beyond that destructive pattern, he said.
“All of us have got a date in the graveyard. What is it going to take for us to shut this (expletive) down for real?” Shareef said. “Let’s stop playing. Let’s unite under freedom, love and equality.”
At the end of the evening, Camacho went around to each member of the crowd. One after another, he said he loved them.
“I am simply your neighbor,” said Camacho. “So I am going to love you.”