MILWAUKEE—As summer drew to a close and local schools opened for the new school year, Muslims, Christians, community activists and others representing a broad cross-section of the city’s residents gathered in the spirit of unity, hope and optimism during Labor Day weekend.
Presented as the Unity Walk on September 4, the march and rally started at Moody Park on Milwaukee’s North Side, where residents and organizers said crime and violence have been an ongoing challenge, particularly among youth who often suffer as both victims and perpetrators.
The march passed up and down streets around the park and concluded with a message of upliftment from event organizers and an empowering performance by Chicago rapper Brother Qadir Hakim, also known as Goalden Chyld.
Nation of Islam Student F.O.I. Captain David Muhammad, of Milwaukee’s Mosque No. 3, told The Final Call that reducing violence through conflict resolution and access to services has long been an ongoing concern on the city’s North Side, and that many have been working with young people to improve their quality of life and neighborhood conditions.
“There were many groups that were working on violence prevention this summer that we have worked with and this is the culmination of the summer efforts to stop the killing among young people in Milwaukee,” Brother David Muhammad said of the aim and purpose of the Unity Walk.
“We worked with Aziz Abdullah from InPower to do community engagement projects with violence prevention activists and other organizations across the county. We had, all throughout the summer, teams of young people learning entrepreneurship, learning how to maintain and keep their communities and make them into decent places to live,” he said.
Brother David Muhammad said cooperation between residents, boots-on-the-ground community organizations, and supportive local government can make for positive change and requires that those desiring positive outcomes work from common goals and objectives.
“The neighborhood we were in is the area of 24th and Burleigh; they call it the Moody Park neighborhood, but among many in Milwaukee it’s called ‘Burli Zoo,’ Bro. David Muhammad explained. “It is a neighborhood that’s been significantly plagued by high levels of gun violence.
It is in the 53206 zip code, which has had a lot of coverage for being a zip code that is very detrimental against Black life in terms of birth outcomes, educational attainment, incarceration and gun violence, so this is the epicenter of a lot of activity this summer to stop the violence,” he said.
Community resident and activist Chamar Clay, founder of Next Generational Leaders (NGL), told The Final Call that her organization advocates for young people who may not know about available resources or may be afraid to ask for help when they truly need it.
“I’m here to talk and be the voice for young people, like push unity and peace in one of the worst ‘incarcerated’ areas in Milwaukee and try to get people in their own neighborhood to feel safe and comfortable,” she said.
“With the Unity March, I met with Aziz and David through the phone, and they told me what they had going on, and I really liked the message,” Ms. Clay said.
“In the area that I’m from, (there’s) a lot of trauma here that we don’t address and we need to get used to coming together. We’ve got to make each other feel safe in our community. Together we rallied about 300 to 400 people,” she said.
Ms. Clay said the Unity Walk started in front of the home of an eight-year-old hit-and-run victim, who was injured the day before the scheduled event and that he and his family appreciated the crowd’s spontaneous show of support.
“Everybody kept saying that this was something they’d never seen before in that area,” she said. “They’d never seen so many people get together and do something that good for the community, which is walk for unity and peace.”
Bro. Aziz Abdullah, co-founder and strategist of the Milwaukee-based InPower, told The Final Call that as a public health organization, his group’s mission is to help improve quality-of-life concerns in the communities they serve.
“The Unity Walk was built on the back end of research, and it falls under the work that we do in the engagement, portfolio of our work, so, throughout the summer, we supported a 10-week strategy called Safe Summer Sites in response to “teen-takeovers,” Bro. Aziz Abdullah said.
“We had meetings with young people who really talked about the lack of engagement and opportunity when it comes to evening and weekend programming, so post-pandemic a lot of the programs closed at six o’clock and they don’t really operate on Saturdays and Sundays.
“So, we wanted to be able to have an opportunity to connect with people, one, to connect them with resources, (and) two, just to remind them that you’re not alone in a community that is looking to recover and thrive,” he said.
Goalden Chyld is a member of the Nation of Islam. He told The Final Call that coming from a Muslim family of musical performers put conscious rap and empowering messages at the forefront of his thinking, and that his performance during the Unity Walk was a way to showcase unity and peace over violence and self-destruction.
“When you understand the magnitude and the weight of what the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has been saying for years, it really would get you to understand the importance of music if we used it properly,” he told The Final Call.
“(The Unity Walk) was just beautiful. It was another opportunity for me to come to the realization that our people are just so beautiful, that our people are so powerful,” said Goalden Chyld. “Milwaukee was absolutely phenomenal.
The children running up and jumping on my shoulders, jumping on my back coming out of houses. When you go into the community and you see what it is that our community needs and what our people want, it’s hard to just sit on your tail.”
