Rally urges end to violence

• By CHANTE DIONNE WARREN
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 25, 2009 - Page: 1B

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When KaDeidra Willis, 17, and her friends saw dozens of people gathered around a black hearse and casket in a parking lot on Thomas Delpit Drive, they walked over to find out what was holding the crowd’s attention.

They were taken aback when they peered inside the coffin and found a prop — a mirrored reflection of themselves.

Organizers of the eighth annual Stop the Killing Rally used such props to encourage teenagers to hear their anti-violence message and to climb aboard a mobile van and view the film “To Live and Die in America.”

The film was just one component of youth counselor and former gang member Arthur “Silky Slim” Reed’s community event Tuesday morning near the McKinley Alumni Center. About 200 residents picked up free frozen turkeys, ate hot dogs and listened to musical entertainment and anti-violence messages.

Reed, who is president of Stop the Killing Inc., a program organized to stop violence, said the message is clear: “Save our children because we have too many dying in America.”

In 2008, there were 82 homicide victims in East Baton Rouge Parish and of those, 89 percent were black and 83 percent were male, according to police records.

So far in 2009, there have been 73 people killed in East Baton Rouge Parish, news accounts in The Advocate show.

Willis, a McKinley High junior, said she is familiar with the consequences of violence in her south Baton Rouge neighborhood.

“I’m growing up in a neighborhood where a lot of killings are happening. Some people I’ve grown up with are dropping out of school, abusing women and I see young guys with guns and it makes me mad,” Willis said.

She has different plans. “I’m going to do whatever I have to do in order to graduate and go to an out-of-state college,” she said. “I have to do and be something. My siblings look up to me.”

Ulysses Long, a former inmate of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, said he helped several men rob a New Orleans liquor store in 1967, was convicted of armed robbery and spent 20 years in prison. He was released on parole in 1988.

“Know who your real friends are,” he said. “One mistake can cost you your life.”

Long said he once thought his “so-called” friends were going to stay by his side. “My ‘boys’ never came to visit me, only my family came,” he said.