Hundreds march against gang violence
| Saturday, Sep 26 2009 06:57 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Sep 26 2009 06:59 PM
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Casey Christie / The Californian Participants in the Wendale Davis Foundation March Against Violence head east on 4th Street from Union Avenue, Saturday, enroute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Park to listen to Bakersfield Mayor Harvey Hall read names of 70 families who have lost a son or daughter to gang violence.
Casey Christie / The Californian The Wendale Davis Foundation March Against Violence had a good turnout Saturday, seen marching along 4th Street from Union Avenue, enroute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Park to listen to Mayor Harvey Hall read names of families who have been effected by gang violence in Bakersfield.
Casey Christie / The Californian Lenora Cleaves, center, carries a large photo of her brother, James Avery, during Saturday's Wendale Davis Foundation March Against Violence in east Bakersfield. Cleaves said her brother was killed on Lakeview Avenue.
The crowd of more than 200 marchers carried memories of the living and photos of the dead.
As they turned left onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, one of the marchers pointed to a nearby market.
"That's where my brother was shot, coming out of that store," said Lenora Cleaves.
One moment 46-year-old James Avery was alive, the next he was gone -- another victim of young, out-of-control gang members who some are now calling urban terrorists.
Despite Saturday's punishing heat, families with children, college students, pastors, working men and even former gang members turned out to walk from Lowell Park at Fourth and P streets to Martin Luther King Park on East California Avenue.
The second annual March Against Violence, organized by the Wendale Davis Foundation, commemorated 93 victims, most of whom died on Bakersfield's meanest streets.
"My kid wasn't a gang member," said Mae Black, who lost her 21-year-old son, Keshawn, to a bullet last November. "I didn't think he had an enemy in the world.
"I can't understand it. I don't understand it," she said. "It's just destroyed me."
This summer has been particularly bloody in Bakersfield with nearly 9 out of 10 killings attributed to gang-related violence.
Police say gang membership in Kern County has jumped 63 percent in four years to nearly 7,500 active gang members.
The violence must stop. It must end, the marchers cried as they passed T Street, another neighborhood that too often has become a war zone.
At King Park, marchers listened as Bakersfield Mayor Harvey Hall read the names of the 93. Volunteers handed out roses to the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers of those who have died.
Edwards, Gibson, Hill, Hodges, Hughes, Jackson, Jones ... the names kept coming like an endless list of war dead -- only the mothers of these casualties get no star to place in their windows.
Wesley Davis Jr., who lost his own son, Wendale, in 2006, is trying to steer the foundation toward active solutions.
Jobs for young men are a must, he says. Mentoring may help show boys there's more to life than the false family structure that gangs promise.
"A lot of these kids believe there's nothing else out there for them," said Kim Sterling, whose son, Victor Aubre Sterling, was gunned down at the age of 17.
"They see the street as their only option," she said. "We have to show them there's another way of life."
