by Byron Muhammad
NEW ORLEANS—Billboards of note have sprung up in New Orleans. “The purpose of this billboard campaign is to take additional steps to inform the city that this conflict initiative exists and work toward creating an environment where resolving conflict—absent the use of violence—becomes the norm,” stated Student Minister Willie Muhammad, of Muhammad Mosque No. 46 during a news conference.
The 10,000 Fearless, the New Orleans Peacekeepers—along with the Office of Black Catholic Ministries of the Archdiocese of New Orleans and members of the community—raised funds to have three billboards displayed in high-traffic areas in the city.
The participants in this initiative want to spread the message of “Squashing the Beef, Before the Grief,” and hope that people will call to do so.
›“This is putting our faith into action,” said Dr. Ansel Augustine of the Black Catholic Ministries. “We can pray all we want, but if we’re not praying with our feet, as we say, and making a difference in the community, this is what this is about. We have a saying that it takes a village to raise a child, but it’s going to take that same village to save that child.”
In addition to the billboards being placed around the city, the groups also utilized the power of social media.
“Whether some like it or not social media is where many of the people’s eyes and minds are. Realizing this I reached out to one of New Orleans’s social media influencers known on Instagram as @Koreywitha_K. Brother is a comical genius. We shared with him the history of our initiative. He came up with a funny one-minute skit that introduces the hotline in a funny way. In the comments, the people talk about how funny the skit is, and also acknowledge that this type of initiative is needed,” Brother Willie Muhammad said.
When the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan was informed about the conflict resolution hotline, he adopted it to be the format that would be used nationally for the Justice or Else, 10,000 Fearless Conflict Resolution Initiative in 2015. Since then, more than 1,500 people have been trained in 25 cities and more than 150 conflicts have been resolved nationally.
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