Mark Scandrette

The summer and fall were marked by violence in our neighborhood. In mid August Adam and Dan, two of our housemates, were the first on the scene of a homicide across the street in Garfield Park. A group of kids from the projects were taunting people in the park. A man stepped in to deescalate the situation. Two boys, approximately 10 and 12 years old went home and got a gun and came back and shot the man in the head. This incident prompted a group of us to initiate Barrio Libre: a grass roots neighborhood advocacy project aimed at curbing violence by addressing blight and encouraging neighbors to take greater ownership for the conditions in our community. OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: What we do matters has been the tag line for this project, which included a poster campaign, neighborhood trash pick-up, attendance at police meetings, and graffiti removal. One night a group of us went out to pick up trash and to pray for peace, and I wrote the following poem:

25th and Shotwell
25th and Treat
25th and Portrero
24th and Mission, Capp, Shotwell, Folsom, Harrison, York
Harrison and 24th
Treat and 25th
Around the corner, down the street, outside my door
These are the places
I can remember off the top of my head
Where brothers, sons, daughters sisters
Were found dead
Shot down in retaliation drive bys
While wearing blue or red

We hear the sirens
and we turn our heads
When the gunshots wake us
And We rise from our beds

A mother weeps
His sister cries
as the mass is sung
Before the blood has dried
In the cracks along these sidewalks

They say He was a street soldier
But why couldn’t he have been older?
What revolution, good cause or war did he loose his life for?

We hear the sirens
and we turn our heads
When the gunshots wake us
And We rise from our beds

After the candles and trinkets have been swept way
We try to forget about the violence which overshadows this day
But tonight, under the street lights, I will remember and pray

Peace to the immigrant child
Hope to all those in exile
Love to fatherless children
Waiting to born into the family of the kingdom of love