Community activists gathered in Roosevelt on Saturday to show that even though violence has decreased in the town, communities will still continue the fight for peace.
Bishop J. Raymond Mackey and his daughter Assistant Pastor Crystal Mackey, of the Tabernacle of Joy Church in Uniondale, led the 18th annual Stop the Violence, Increase the Peace march through the streets of Roosevelt.
People from surrounding communities, including Roosevelt, Uniondale, and Baldwin, gathered in support of facilitating peace in their neighborhoods. Helping End Violence Now, a local organization of activists, was present, as well as the NAACP. The Roosevelt High School band performed as people marched.
Assistant Pastor Mackey spoke of the causes of gang and youth violence in her community, which she said can come from anything going on in the world, like “the economy, the stressors of life, people not having what they need.”
“Our focus is more so to look at what people do need and being able to provide those resources so it doesn’t have to lend to criminal activity,” she said.
Bishop Mackey believes that healing the community and the world starts with healing the whole person from the inside out, sharing a story that reflects this need.
“A young boy came home from school and wanted to play, and the dad was tired,” he explained. “So the dad gave him a picture, and he ripped up the picture, and it was a news article, a picture of the world. He said, ‘When you put this together, we’ll play.’
“In less than ten minutes he was back, he had it together,” Mackey continued. “And (the dad) asked him how he was able to get it put together so quickly. He said, ‘Well, on the back of the world was a man’s head. When I put the man’s head together, the world was together.’”
“If we can work on mankind and getting our thoughts together,” he added, “it will impact the whole world.”
Deacon Aaron L. Scott of Mount Sinai believes a key problem in the continuation of community violence is that local churches aren’t stepping up and intervening enough.
“They need better leadership,” Scott said. “When I grew up here, every church came together. Didn’t matter whether they were Jewish or Italian or whatever it was, but they all came together and had meetings and talked about what was going on in the community.”
Pearl Jacobs, a Uniondale native and the president of the Nostrand Gardens Civic Association, said that the police are a vital part of solving youth and gang violence, and that gangs are a nexus of this violence.
“Young people need structure,” Jacobs said. “A lot of gang violence is very prevalent in Long Island. A lot of young people gravitate to gangs because they have nothing else to do. There need to be programs, mentorships, for young people, so these gangs won’t bring them in.”
Something that all of the organizations present at the march have in common is that they offer youth programs that provide mentorship and positivity.
“We’ve had a lot of men drop their flags, go to school, graduate from college,” Bishop Mackey said. “A lot have gotten married, have families. We have so many success stories. When you meet the whole man, the whole man becomes healthy.”
