Prayer groups are intimate. Here the broken heart seeks healing, meaning. Here pain and vulnerabilities are shared, and hearts and hands embrace to comfort, to soothe. Into this place of healing walked a murderer. The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina subscribes to the most fundamental of biblical precepts:“I was a stranger […]

Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear Jhukuruin Cole speak. He shared his thoughts as a member of the youth panel at the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention’s annual Summit held in Washington D.C. Jhukuruin had recently joined the police force in Memphis. But why did this impressive, self-possessed young African Man […]

When I ask businesses and others to step up to mentor, they ask, ‘what are you guys doing’? And I say, ‘Here’s our Mentors Program…mentoring is an act of citizenship…at the end of the day, we’re put on the earth to make the world a better place…being an American is not a spectator sport.’ ~ […]

Part of my work for the California Cities Violence Prevention Network and the National Forum on Violence is to visit those cities engaged in the work of launching a comprehensive violence prevention strategy, a strategy blending prevention, such as family support, intervention, such as mentoring or drop out prevention, enforcement and reentry (work with individuals […]