We were part of a movement that is building step by step, block by block. The folks we met did not want vengeance and did not want officer Darren Wilson killed. They want an end to killing.
Rev. Michael McBride, known simply as “Pastor Mike, ” is the Director of Urban Strategies and Lifelines to Healing Campaign for the PICO National Network.
In the background is where the story is most dangerous. Inside of us, black and white, it lies unexamined and ready to pounce: like HIV, attacking our immune system and making us vulnerable to hatred and death.
George was not the first person to tell me that young black men in Durham feel hunted by the police. For nearly a decade, I heard this from a generation of teens and young adults in Durham, North Carolina’s Walltown neighborhood.
What if you were the Brown family? What if your son, who was preparing to leave home and start his college career, was approached by police for either jaywalking or stealing cigars from a store?
You have not moved to this side of town to rescue the inner city. Rather, you’re all getting yourselves saved a little at a time by doing life together across lines of difference.