MAY 23, 2009
Chicago Student Killings Spark Appeals to Obama
By DOUGLAS BELKIN
WSJ
CHICAGO -- Community activists here are calling on President Barack Obama to address inner-city violence after a sharp increase in the number of killings of school-age children. Total homicides in Chicago are down but with three weeks before the summer vacation, the city has tallied 37 killings of public-school children since fall, compared with 21 homicides during the 2007-08 school year. By contrast, 23 students have been killed this school year in Los Angeles, which enrolls nearly twice as many children in public schools. Most of the Chicago victims were black and Latino students who lived on the city's south and west sides. None were killed in school.
Mark Allen, who helped teach Mr. Obama how to organize communities 20 years ago, is joining other activists in calling on the president to show the same passion he brought to the issue as a young man. "He's not the same Barack," said Mr. Allen, a 47-year-old community activist. "He's not doing what he said he would do when we were walking the streets together and talking about what we would do if we were in charge." About two-thirds of the city's homicides this year have been drug- or gang-related, according to police. But students are getting caught in the crossfire, along with cases of mistaken identity. Many of the community activists who worked alongside Mr. Obama in years past are calling for stricter gun control, more money for gang intervention and summer jobs programs, as well as a presidential summit.
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Mr. Obama's senior adviser Valerie Jarrett says the president is trying to jump-start the economy with his stimulus plan, "which will do more to combat the crime problem then just about anything else." The stimulus money contains "an unprecedented level of support" for law enforcement as well as a broad array of programs aimed at keeping children safe, she said. "But the people have to take ownership too and be willing to report crimes, and when they see them, to testify," Ms. Jarrett said. "This is a partnership."
Frustration with the growing number of young homicides has prompted some people in Chicago to protest by displaying the U.S. flag upside down, a symbol of distress. The campaign began with Spencer Leak Sr., 72 years old, who owns a South Side funeral home that has buried 10 children in recent months. A U.S. Army veteran and former executive director of the Cook County Department of Corrections, Mr. Leak first proffered the flag idea during his weekly commentary on a gospel radio show.
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Phillip Jackson, Black Star's executive director, has been circulating a map of the locations of where the children have died in relation to Mr. Obama's Hyde Park home. Most of the homicides occurred within an eight-mile radius, Mr. Jackson said. His point is to draw attention to the crisis and highlight Mr. Obama's responsibility to address it. Reaction to the map has been mixed. "People are protective of
in the black community," Mr. Jackson said. "They don't want to embarrass him." The split tends to cleave along class lines, said Mr. Allen, who worked with Mr. Obama in a South Side neighborhood shortly after Mr. Obama moved to Chicago in 1985. Middle-class blacks in safer neighborhoods are more likely to counsel patience, he said. "But we don't have any more patience," Mr. Allen said. "This is an emergency."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124303932465649095.html (subscription)
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A4
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