For more than a decade, dozens of posters printed with the faces of local children have flanked the exterior of Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church for three weeks in early fall. The signs are each labeled with a name, date and age — when the child’s life was cut short by gun violence.
On Sunday, tributes to 55 kids as young as 5 and up to 19 years old fluttered in the October breeze. Most were people of color, reflective of a statewide issue — an overwhelming majority of homicide victims are Black. That racial disparity motivated organizers to put on the displays.
“We are a mostly white congregation in a mostly white and quite wealthy neighborhood that was intentionally gentrified decades ago to push Black and brown people out,” said the Rev. Beth Brown, the church’s pastor. “It’s important we tell the truth about that. And because of that, we wanted to invite the Lincoln Park neighborhood many, many years ago to see each young person as our young people, as part of our city, and as a result, to want to get activated to address the myriad systemic issues that lead to gun violence. We wanted our neighborhood to understand that no one is free until we are all free.”
This is the ninth year the church has held a vigil to accompany the display, bringing Chicagoans together to urge the City Council and Mayor Brandon Johnson to fund sustainable solutions that foster peace. These demands include calls to pass a proposed ordinance to establish a permanent Office for Gun Violence Reduction.
“Chicago is sort of behind the ball,” said the Rev. Ciera Bates-Chamberlain, executive director of Live Free Illinois, which has been campaigning since Rahm Emanuel’s mayoral administration for the city to have an office dedicated to gun violence like many other municipalities across the country.
“There’s been a lack of willingness to prioritize gun violence,” she added. “We’re literally asking for elected officials to invest in neighborhoods so that people can walk down the streets without the fear of a bullet. So it’s unfortunate that this issue has been politicized, but in a sense, it was forced to be politicized because there just hasn’t been the political will to move this issue forward.”
The state chapter of Live Free USA, a national organization that mobilizes churches to reduce gun violence and transform the criminal justice system, has brought together a coalition of faith leaders who decided they’d seen enough devastation in their communities and decided to take action.
“Public safety cannot be just about having … less homicides. Public safety is not just about security,” said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church in Auburn Gresham. “Public safety, in my mind, is about creating neighborhoods and communities where people do not live in fear, from the time they get up in the morning to the time they go to bed at night.
“Public safety is about creating a community where children feel safe on their porch, in their house, in front of their house, on their way to or from school, or going to their friend’s house or their classmate’s house to play,” Pfleger continued. “Safety is not about putting in place the resources for some and not all, but about making sure that the South Side and the West Side look just like the North Side and have the same amount of resources.”
The ordinance, co-sponsored by Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, 48th, and Ald. Desmon Yancy, 5th, would include funding for the office from no less than 1.5% of the city’s approved corporate budget.
“Oftentimes, when we know that when people are shot and killed, they sort of become a news story or a number just wrapped up into the hundreds of people that have been lost to Chicago’s gun violence,” Bates-Chamberlain told the Tribune. “We don’t honor them just by saying, ‘Hey, let’s post your picture,’ but we honor them by saying that we’re going to fight.”