In a city where safety is not equally felt, GKMC18 is creating a space for young people “to feel free,” and refusing to wait for grownups to act.
On a warm Friday night in Bronzeville, a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, a group of young people gather in a stylish warehouse-turned-workspace to focus on the agenda of the evening: “What can we do for the shortys?”
On tonight’s meeting agenda: planning the group’s monthly open-mic night, scouting locations for the nextevent to distribute more food to hungry neighbors, and choosing between a sports tournament or a back-to-school bonfire for the younger kids. They’re not much older than the kids they’re reaching out to, so they know what’ll be popular. If it’s going to be the bonfire, there should definitely be s’mores.
Officially, GKMC is leaderless, though 38-year-old activist Kofi Ademola, who previously worked with Black Lives Matter Chicago, serves as an adult mentor. Decisions are made democratically; when a member shares good news or a positive idea, the group snaps in approval, poetry slam-style. If someone confesses to falling short on an obligation, they own up, and ask to be held accountable; the group responds by owning up to ways they could have been more supportive.
Paris Brown, whose friends call him “Tree,” talks openly about the fear and paranoia that consumes shooting survivors. Brown was shot and paralyzed when he was 18. After the shooting, he thought about death everywhere. At 19, Taylore Norwood isn’t far removed from school-aged kids in her neighborhood. Her mom is an elementary school principal. She understands that while some kids in America fear getting shot in their classrooms, students in her community fear getting shot before they even arrive at school, or after they leave.
Ademola believes a more meaningful solution to gun violence will come from undoing the inequality that’s steeped in Chicago’s black and brown communities: Poverty, generations of trauma and PTSD, and a dearth of spaces to feel safe, resolve conflicts, or heal.cycles of violence, Ademola notes. That men must be strong, tough, and emotionless are ideas many shooters absorb from American culture.
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