Casualties of War: the Ripple Effect of Inner –City Violence on Church & Community

CASUALTIES OF WAR: THE RIPPLE EFFECT OF INNER –CITY VIOLENCE ON CHURCH & COMMUNITY

RHONDA Y. BRITTON

B.B.A., Bernard M. Baruch College, CUNY, 1986 M.C.I.S., Rutgers University, 1997 M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary, 2002

Submitted to the Faculty of Theology, Acadia University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Ministry

Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University Spring Convocation 2013

This thesis by RHONDA Y. BRITTON was defended successfully in any oral examination on 8 April 2013.

The examining committee for the thesis was:

Dr. Anna Robbins, Chair

Dr. Howard Ramos, External Reader

Dr. William Brackney, Thesis Supervisor

Dr. Heather Kitchin, Internal Reader

This thesis is accepted in its present form by Acadia Divinity College as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree Doctor of Ministry.

I, RHONDA Y. BRITTON, hereby grant permission to the Head Librarian at Acadia University to provide copies of this thesis, on request, on a non-profit basis.

__Rhonda Y. Britton______AUTHOR

___Dr. William Brackney______SUPERVISOR

___8 April 2013______DATE

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract……………………………………………………………………..v Acknowledgments……………………………………….. ………………vi

1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………….……..1

2 BIBLICAL and THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION………………………...7

3 THE IMMEDIATE CONTEXT: HALIFAX NORTH END ……………. 42

4 CASE METHOD and CASE ..……………………………………………76

5 MINISTRY STRATEGIES………….……………………………………..99

6 CONCLUSION …………..………………………..……………………. 115

APPENDIX………………….……………………………………….……128

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………….132

LIST OF TABLES and FIGURES

Figure 1 “Context of Study”

Table 1 “Demographic Indicators of Study Area”

Table 2 “HRM 2011 4th Quarter/Year End Statistics”

Figure 1.1 “Gottingen Street Commercial Trends 1950-2000”

Figure 1.2 “Gottingen Street Social Agencies vs. Vacancies 1950-2000”

ABSTRACT

This work is an exploration of street violence in an inner city community, particularly as it relates to African Nova Scotians in North Central Halifax. The researcher’s aim is to gain an understanding of the determinants of violent behavior so that strategies may be employed to address the determinants and thus reduce the violence. The discussion centers on the particular case of a young man who was both a perpetrator and victim of violence. Ethnographical methodology is used as the means of gathering the case information. The researcher enters into the life and circumstances of the case subject to extract and analyze information, drawing conclusions that may help in the development of ministry approaches to inner city violence.

The work begins with an auto-biography of the researcher and how she came to be interested in this work and then moves to the theological basis of concern and why finding methods to address violence should be a priority of the church. The researcher shares the background of the area of study from a historical perspective, specifically focusing on the deep-rootedness of societal dysfunction, including systemic racism, and with that knowledge presents a case as a typology of the casualties of the war that is claiming the lives of those that are marginalized in the city. The case is presented as a microcosm, examined through an analytical and theological lens, to draw conclusions about the state of the inner city and its challenges. Strategies are then suggested to help other churches facing similar challenges. v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work would not have been possible without the grace of God and the encouragement of so many people. I am grateful to my beloved friend and brother in Christ, Dr. Bruce McCormack, who first urged me to undertake doctoral studies after completing the Master of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary

(PTS). He convinced me that I should do more. As I contemplated various topics of study, I shared the idea of exploring inner city violence and thank Dr.

Peter Paris, professor emeritus of PTS, Nova Scotia native, and friend, who helped me discern the shape the work would take. I thoroughly enjoyed the

Theological Foundations course that was my re-introduction into the academy and am thankful to Dr. William Brackney who made the class so engaging I asked him to be my thesis supervisor. Without his wisdom, his patience and his guidance the work would have been much more difficult to complete. I thank Dr.

Wanda Thomas Bernard for her keen insight and direction as my internal reader.

I also acknowledge the tremendous and informative work of the “Racism,

Violence and Health (RVH) Project” that examined the stories and experience of

African Canadian community members in Halifax, Toronto, and Calgary to study the impact of violence – including the violence of racism – on their health and well being. Dr. Bernard was the team leader of the project, which provided a wealth of resource material for my work.

I have been blessed with several supportive colleagues in ministry and some truly wonderful friends. I am grateful to them all, but especially to Dr.

Leslie and the late Sharon Oliver, and Rev. Jennifer and Mr. Mark Riley for opening their homes to me and providing me with creature comforts whenever I stayed in Wolfville. I also thank my dear friend, Rev. Cheryle Hanna for giving me a place to go to get some work done when I desperately needed it.

I am so very thankful to my family. My cousin, Rev. Stanley Hawkins, cared for Cornwallis Street while I took a few weeks to focus on my writing. My mother, Alice Britton, my aunts, Myra Anderson, Alveta Smith, Rev. Delano

McIntosh, and Wilma Rogers, and my cousin, Shana Faison have laughed, cried, and prayed with me as I navigated life while engaged in this work. My son,

Joseph, inspires me to never give up on saving our young men from the streets.

He also gives great hugs. Family, I love you so very much.

Lastly, I thank Dr. Andrew McRae, who never gave up insisting I undertake this degree at Acadia, his wife, Jean, who makes the most fantastic cookies, my colleagues in the African United Baptist Association and its

Licensing Committee, for encouragement and financial support, and my

Cornwallis Street Baptist Church family, who have prayed for and with me through this project.

Thank you, all, and may God richly bless you.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

About The Researcher

Leah Fitchue, President of Payne Theological Seminary (Wilberforce, OH) believes that the DNA of the Black church is protest. “If you are not involved in protest, you have missed your calling.”1 Shaped by a grandmother who lived through the Great Depression and a mother who raised me through the Civil

Rights Era, I am a native of Florida and a daughter of the South’s protest-ant church—the church that railed against injustice and fought for the rights of people. My pastors and the pastors I knew in community marched with Martin

Luther King, Jr. Our church members traveled to be a part of the historic 1963

March on Washington.

Those were my beginnings. When I answered the call to ministry after a successful corporate career, it was no surprise that my ministry focus would be the empowerment of people by the aid of Holy Spirit. The call to ministry was undeniable, coming a second time after the first call in my teen years. I resigned from the corporate world and entered seminary for training, all the while being active in the church I then considered “home”.

The neighborhood where that “home” church is located (Port Richmond,

Staten Island, NY) was once a thriving area of retail shops and small businesses.

During the 60s and 70s it was alive with commerce. By the time I arrived there in

1 Keynote address at the August 2012 reunion of the Association of Black Seminarians of Princeton Theological Seminary on its campus in Princeton, NJ.

1983 it had changed to empty storefronts and dilapidated buildings. Many of the long-time residents were still there, but the businesses and services to support them had moved out. In the late 1990’s the area became the destination for an influx of Mexican immigrants who began to settle there. These recent arrivals have opened some small businesses on Port Richmond Avenue, the main commercial street that runs the length of the area, but the area still has the feeling of blight and neglect. The church that was once a neighborhood church has since become a “commuter” church. It has made little attempt to minister effectively to the mainly Spanish-speaking population that now surrounds it.

Instead it continues to draw its attendance from membership that has scattered to different parts of the Island and New Jersey. In that sense, it is no longer a community church.

It is precisely that challenge of trying to discern how community churches and their ministries can be relevant to changing demographics that has motivated me since I accepted my call into ministry in 1997. My first solo charge was a small town church in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. I served there from 2002 -

2007. I came to my present pastorate at Cornwallis Street Baptist Church in

Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2007. It is an urban setting with far different challenges.

City ministry and rural or town ministry are vastly different. The tasks appointed to each are similar in nature—the basic tasks of preaching and teaching, visitation and congregational care, community building and involvement. It is the content, degree and / or shape of the tasks that varies. This is simply because what is important to town folks is not important to city dwellers and vice-versa.

What is necessary for a vibrant church in town and a thriving church in the city is different—significantly so.

Why This Work?

The majority of Cornwallis Street Baptist Church members seek to be engaged in meaningful work and witness to the community. This has led to vigorous discourse about the state of the community—gentrification of the north central area of Halifax, educational issues among our youth, family challenges as the number of single-parent families increases, over-representation of incarcerated blacks in the criminal justice system, systemic and institutional racism, the proliferation of drug and sex-trade influences amongst the young, the formation of quasi-gangs and the dramatic increase in street crime and violence.

With these events happening around us, our church has had to reframe, re- vision, and redefine its mission to address the present challenges. The church has had to become a protest-ant church rallying against violence and injustice. It is expected that the minister of Cornwallis Street Baptist Church will be one who is willing to be engaged in these matters of social inequities and crumbling community. “Engagement” very often means being the one who takes the lead in facilitating community action and response. The Reverends Richard Preston

(founder, 1832-1861), William A. White (1919-1936), W.P. Oliver (1937-1962),

Charles Coleman (1962-1965), and Joseph C. Mack (1969-1991) were all champions of social justice from the pulpit of Cornwallis Street.

In my first year, our community experienced the heartbreaking and untimely death of one of my congregants—a 21-year-old male named Jaumar

Carvery, who was shot dead in the public housing complex near our church. It was then that I decided to undertake this work. The murder of this young man and the subsequent stories of others who are caught up in the world of street crime and violence stirred a passion inside me to do something to help stem the tide of this senseless violence.

Theological Tensions Arising

This thesis, “Casualties of War: The Ripple Effect of Inner City Violence” examines the effects of urban violence on church and community and develops a practical framework that may help other pastors who must minister to those affected by such circumstances. For the purposes of this work, inner city or street violence2 refers to the use of physical force and / or weaponry by individuals or groups within public spaces, resulting in injury or death. Inner city or street violence is associated in particular with gang and youth violence, which often takes place in the street or other open areas.

I use the metaphor of “war” to characterize urban violence because it is claiming lives every day, particularly the lives of African-Canadian males. Black males are deliberately recruited into illicit activity and they are armed, offensively and defensively. The areas where violence is erupting are becoming

2 The terms “inner city”, “street”, and “urban” in conjunction with “violence” are used interchangeably.

increasingly dangerous and tense. The residents and communities are casualties of systems that have failed them and a society that marginalizes them.

My premise, based on what I have experienced in inner city Halifax, is that the effects of inner city violence are far-reaching and deeply wounding.

Some of the theological challenges that may emerge from reflection on the issues that lead to the loss of life the Halifax North End community is now experiencing include questions and theological thought concerning primarily, theodicy and secondarily, the notion of predestination and election. Theodicy addresses the question of why a good God allows evil and why bad things happen to good people. 3 Predestination and election explore the idea of free will and the possibility that some people are destined to commit evil. Are such people redeemable?4 Are they ordained vessels for destruction?5

Children who are raised in church and who actively participate in the life of the local church present a particular paradox in light of these theological questions when they choose a path directly opposed to the principles and values

3 For a more detailed exposition on theodicy see Daniel Migliore’s Faith Seeking Understanding (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1991) in which Migliore discusses “The Providence of God and the Mystery of Evil”. For a more provocative discussion of divine benevolence in light of black oppression, see Is God a White Racist? by William R. Jones (Beacon Hill, 1997). In his work, Jones critically analyzes the positions of other black theologians, such as James Cone and Albert Cleage on the question of divine racism.

4 Predestination and election became cornerstones in the theological writings of 16th century pastor and theologian John Calvin. In his main work, Institutes of Christian Religion, trans. by Henry Beveridge, Esq. (London: Bonham Norton, 1599), Calvin contended that God, in his sovereignty, has chosen individuals—the elect-- who will be saved. All others, by divine ordination, will be condemned. See also Calvin’s Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans with an intro. by J. K. S. Reid (London: James Clarke, 1961).

5 Rom. 9:21 (KJV)

of the Christian faith. As in the case of this 21-year-old young man, these children seem to become involved in criminal activity to meet some immediate financial need, but are quickly engulfed and overcome by others more deeply immersed in the criminal lifestyle. Why do they deem illegal activity an option for their lives? Jaumar was killed just after he had taken steps to turn his life around and get out of crime. 6

Jaumar’s death, after his resolve to improve, is the gritty substance of theological inquiry. Why would God allow him to be killed just when he wanted to make a change—just when there was the potential for a testimony that might affect an entire population of youth? Because of the many facets and complexities of these issues I see that I must formulate new understanding as I seek answers. It is only by boldly approaching these questions with an open heart to Jesus that I have a modicum of hope in being effective in ministering to the troubled youngsters in North End Halifax. It is with this hope that I undertake this work.

The following chapter will examine some of the theological tensions invoked in a discussion on street violence and its effects with an aim at establishing a theological foundation for the study.

6Robyn Young, “Shooting victim 'wanted to be a better person'”. Metro News, May 5, 2008.

CHAPTER 2

BIBLICAL and THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION7

“The Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it."” (Gen. 4:6-7). Since the beginning of human existence—the simplest of times have not been simple. Human nature is complex and with its complexities has internally and externally been challenged by the causes of violence: social structures, societal customs and practices, jealousy, covetousness, feelings of inferiority or marginalization, etc. From the beginning, social and familial constructions have contributed to the struggle for individual self-determination vis-à-vis societal demands and acceptance. The Word of

God is clear that killing is wrong and that a violent response to our brothers and sisters is not an appropriate response.8 This chapter will highlight some of the indications in scripture that the problem of inner city violence is a challenge the

Church must meet and strive to eliminate.

7 All scripture references are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible unless otherwise noted.

8Ex. 20:13 and Matt.5:21-24.

The Biblical Problem

Cain and Abel, the sons of the first humans, Adam and Eve, are being raised in a culture that expects them to sacrifice offerings—the fruits of their bounty—to God. God accepted and delighted in Abel’s meat offering, but Cain’s grain offering is not acceptable to God. (Gen. 4:4-5) The reader is not told why in this immediate context, but from references in Hebrews 11:4 and 1 John 3:12

Cain’s sacrifice is characterized as coming from impure motives. There seems to have been some sincerity lacking in Cain’s offering. Cain is displeased with and perhaps jealous of God’s favor to his brother Abel and he plots to kill him. “Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" And the Lord said, "What have you done? Listen; your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground!””

(Gen. 4:9-10) Thus, we have the first murder—fratricide—and human beings have been killing their brothers (and sisters) ever since. But from the ground, the blood of countless men and women, boys and girls, cries out for mercy, for justice, for an end to the systems—physiological, psychological, sociological and economic systems that have perpetuated violence among human beings, and for the purposes of this thesis, among inner city youth, who have been on the margins of these systems for decades.

God’s admonishment and cursing of Cain speaks to his disapproval of the violence Cain visited upon his brother. Cain’s anger and frustration is still not abated through his criminal act and is compounded now by guilt as demonstrated by his sarcasm in Genesis 4:9 when he uses the term “keeper”. It is almost

spewed at God. Isn’t God “keeper”? Why did God not protect Abel? This is the question we are faced with by every parent who has had a child killed—where was God as “keeper”? Why would a good God who loves us allow my child to be killed? Was this a part of my child’s destiny? Was this the ordained number of days for his or her life?

Theodicy is defined as the “defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil.”9 In seeking to reconcile God’s sovereignty with the presence of evil, black liberation theologian William R. Jones, in his book, Is

God a White Racist?, adopts the concept of “humanocentric theism”.10

Humanocentric theism affirms humanity, empowered by God, as functionally co- creator of their social existence. It states that human beings are free to exercise choice, and lastly that God exercises persuasion, rather than coercion to move humanity in the right direction to overcome evil. This resolves the problem of theodicy for Jones. Otherwise God, as all-powerful, has seemingly aligned himself with the dominant culture in its oppression of blacks who have been suffering without the benefit of God’s intervention. That, in Jones’ view, means

God would have to be a white racist.11

Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union

Theological Seminary (New York) and renowned promulgator of black liberation

9 Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster), 2005.

10 William R. Jones, Is God a White Racist? (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), 185-194.

11James H. Evans, We Have Been Believers (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 62-66.

theology, James Cone, takes another approach. Cone posits that philosophical notions of evil and humanism do not take into account the strength of biblical truth. He is not as concerned with exploring the origins of evil as with destroying it. The Christ event is the ultimate marker that suffering is against God’s will.12

Cone explores suffering as dualistic in nature. He understands negative suffering as the substance of socioeconomic and political oppression. This is suffering that must be resisted. But there is also positive suffering, which is the black community’s struggle for freedom. Cone calls on the black community to actively participate in its own liberation when he states:

Black people, therefore, as God’s Suffering Servant, are called to suffer with and for God in the liberation of humanity. This suffering to which we have been called is not a passive endurance of white people’s insults, but rather, a way of fighting for our freedom.13

For the inner city minister / pastor, an understanding of the rudimentary principles of survival in what Professor Jim Silver14 refers to as “spatially concentrated racialized poverty” is essential in the fight for freedom Cone identifies. “Racialization” is defined as “categorization through which social relations between people [are] structured by the signification of human biological characteristics”15. The process of racialization constructs, differentiates, inferiorizes, and excludes, such that it becomes inseparable from economic

12 Anthony B. Pinn, Why, Lord? (New York: Continuum, 1995), 88.

13 James Cone, God of the Oppressed, rev.ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,1997), 178.

14 Silver is the Director of Urban and Inner City Studies at the University of Winnipeg.

15 Wendy Chan and Kiran Mirchandani, eds. Crimes of Colour (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, Ltd., 2002), 12-13.

inequality, gendering, and criminalization. The focus on racialization as process highlights the historical influences of colonization and conquest in shaping ideological frameworks developed around categories of “race”.16 When people struggle against the injustices, inequities, and the systemic discrimination that racialization has produced, they become a part of the forward movement of society toward the equitable and humane treatment of all its citizens. Restoring each person’s inherent right to freely enjoy the creation God has given and to participate just as freely in the structures and systems human beings have created—and the creation of those systems and structures— may cause some suffering, but it is the positive suffering to which Cone refers. It is a necessary and good suffering for the liberation of all peoples from oppression so that we might live in a world that reflects God’s intention for fullness of life for every human being. Cone posits that the decisive event of liberation is Jesus Christ.

He died on the cross and was resurrected that we might be free to struggle for the “affirmation of black humanity”. It is possible for blacks to struggle for freedom “because we know that God is struggling too.”17

As one considers the concept of theodicy, these theological questions have no definitive answers. How are mere humans to know the mind and purposes of God? We can only turn to our interpretive understanding of God as a God of love and compassion and our experience of God, whatever that has been, to draw our conclusions.

16 Wendy Chan and Kiran Mirchandani, 12-13.

17 Cone, 178.

The scriptures teach us that God wants the best outcome for us.18 We know that there are consequences for our actions. God has given us the power of choice. We are encouraged to choose wisely.19 The consequences we suffer are a result of the choices we make. Newton’s third law of physics states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We know this not only to be true in motion, but true in nature. One’s doctrine of God may not allow for the thought that God causes evil things to happen, but any person who believes in

God’s sovereignty must concede that Almighty God, who is able to stop evil does allow evil as a consequence of the choice someone has made.20 That evil results in the loss of life we see among black youth in the North Central Halifax community.

In considering the existence of evil, pastor and author, R. C. Sproul writes,

One thing we know for sure is that evil does exist. It exists, if nowhere else, in us and in our behavior. We know that the force of evil is extraordinary and brings great pain and suffering into the world. We also know that God is sovereign over it and in His sovereignty will not allow evil to have the last word. Evil always and ever serves the ultimate best

18 Rom. 8:28

19 Deut. 30:19

20In his discussion of God’s sovereignty and evil, Daniel Migliore references the teachings of renowned 20th century theologian and scholar, Karl Barth. He states that God “accompanies creatures in the exercise of their own vitality and freedom” by recognizing and respecting the creatures’ freedom to act. God is neither puppet-master nor tyrant, “always respecting [the creatures’] finite autonomy.” That autonomy makes possible the occurrence of evil. God, in his sovereignty, does not stop evil from happening, but uses it toward the accomplishment of God’s own good purposes. Migliore posits that Christians must see evil through the lens of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, who also suffered evil. For further detail, see Migliore’s Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991), 109.

interest of God Himself. It is God in His goodness and in His sovereignty who has ordained the final conquest over evil and its riddance from His universe. In this redemption we find our rest and our joy — and until that time, we live in a fallen world.21

The Ministry Problem

In processing an event of violence and the theological query that may ensue (formally or informally), some of the fallout—the collateral damage, if you will, of urban violence is that the entire community mourns. Community is frequently left with the acrimonious dissatisfaction of a life lost and no one held accountable. Dissatisfaction leads to hopelessness and mounting frustration with a criminal justice system that very often disproportionately metes out sentences to those they apprehend for petty crime while leaving major crime unsolved. The community is fraught with lingering questions of accountability and insecurity revolving around safety issues. As gangbangers22 exhibit more and more boldness the public becomes more timid. Law enforcement efforts may also be thwarted because of the public’s mounting fear of repercussion. The spectrum of repercussion ranges from the extreme of becoming a victim of violence, perhaps even being killed, being threatened or harassed on a daily basis, to

21 R. C. Sproul, retrieved from http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/mystery-iniquity/ (accessed February 20, 2013). Dr. Sproul is a Reformed theologian and the founder and president of Ligonier Ministries. He formerly served as the distinguished professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Knox Theological Seminary (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla). He is currently the pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla.

22 Merriam-Webster defines “gangbanger” as “a member of a street gang”. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gangbanger (accessed on February 15, 2013).

lesser extremes of being labeled a “snitch” or “rat”, causing one to be ostracized in the community or by one’s own extended family if the perpetrator is a member of the family.

The community is plagued with questions. Who is penalized for these crimes? What are the rights of the victim? How is justice served? How is the community to be healed? What are teachers and friends of perpetrators and victims to do? How are they now to think of the person they once knew? How do community members keep from becoming bitter, or worse, victims themselves? What can be done to stem the tide of violence that is overtaking our neighborhoods? What can be done to sustain a healthy community with the sense of safety and peace that once prevailed? These questions plague the community and the church. The problem in the practice of ministry is: “How can

I, as a pastor to the black community in North Central Halifax, effectively minister to youth—churched and un-churched—who have been victims or perpetrators of violence, in a way that helps them to discover a sense of purpose and connectedness to community that encourages them to stop using violence as a means of solving disputes?

The Theological Basis of This Work

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth... Then

God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and 14

over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’"23 In thinking about the violence issue theologically, I am first drawn to the creation story and the beginning of human social interaction. God has intended from the beginning for humankind to live to our fullest potential, enjoying the wonderful creation around us.

We know from the creation story in Genesis that God created all there is from nothing (ex nihilo), crowning that creation with the formation of human beings in the imago dei. From the beginning God enjoyed a special relationship with human beings. God communicated and fellowshipped with his human creatures.24 This picture of God walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, coming to be with the humans, gives God an anthropomorphic presence and a matter-of-fact way of being that suggests this as a common interaction between

Creator and creature.

God placed these human creatures in the midst of a garden in Eden, an earthly paradise, to care for and take pleasure in all that God had made. With the fall of humankind into sin, the subsequent curses, and eviction from Eden,25 humans were still allowed to exist and to care for creation. Even when God decided to wipe creation from the earth, with only a remnant being saved, the

23 Gen. 1.1, 26

24 Gen. 3:8-9

25 Gen. 3:16-24

care of that remnant was given to Noah and his family. Man’s stewardship of the earth and its creatures was continued in covenant with God.26

God’s judgment on the earth because of humankind’s violence is evidence of God’s desire that we live as peaceable people. Before he committed the first murder, God warned Cain of the mounting destructive emotions building inside of him.27 It is this same very palpable sense of frustration and confusion mixed with bitter hopelessness that grips the heart of many young black males today.

Defining the Current Day Problem

Thousands of years later, as humankind continues to struggle in sin,

Jesus Christ reminds us that he came to give us abundant life—full and overflowing, rich and satisfying.28 In the urban core of Halifax, the notion of abundant life eludes the general population. It is difficult for people who have never known abundance to imagine it in the way that God intends. A climate and social consciousness of consumerism is the ideal of abundance that is most readily and easily understood by a population of people who often do not have their material needs met. Abundant life takes on the meaning of sufficiency in material sustenance. It directs action and aims towards gaining that material.

26 Gen. 6:17-21

27 Gen. 4:6-7

28 John 10:10

There is not a focus on self-development, empowerment, education, capacity- building, or self-actualization to the degree that would bring one a sense of fulfillment and contentment. In accordance with psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of need,29 such lofty goals are indeed the last consideration in the day- to-day existence in the inner city. One is not even consciously aware of such goals. The aim each day is survival.

Author of Revolution and Renewal (2000), professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University (Pennsylvania, US), Anthony Campolo, expounds upon renowned philosopher, academic, and social activist Cornel West’s belief that black teenaged youth have a nihilistic cultural mindset arising out of a consumer goods-driven society. Since materialism becomes the focus and guarantor of survival, then the effort—the aim—becomes getting all that one can as quickly and easily as possible.

This project’s area of study is within the area bounded by Cogswell,

Agricola, North, and Barrington Streets, just north of downtown—the northern part of what is considered central Halifax. Within that area, the statistics of those living on income assistance are broken out as follows:

29 Abraham H. Maslow was a noted 20th century American psychologist who impacted the field with his theory on human motivation depicted in a five-level pyramid of ascending fulfillment. Maslow posited that human beings are most immediately concerned with their physiological needs, such as food and shelter, found at the bottom of the pyramid. The ascendant levels address the human’s social and emotional needs. The very top of the pyramid is the level Maslow called “self-actualization”. This top level is characterized by one’s desire for complete fulfillment in life and a sense of achieving one’s full potential. Maslow’s point was that these needs are the motivation that determines a person’s behavior—human beings are driven by their needs. For a more detailed understanding, see Maslow’s Motivation and Personality (New York: Harper, 1954).

701 households eligible to receive Income Assistance comprised of 732 adults and 341 dependents; 31 two-adult and 670 single adult households; of the 670 single adult households, 495 had no dependents and 175 were single-parent households; of the 175 single parent households, 169 were female-led; of the

495 adult households with no dependents, 322 were male with 154 of those between the ages of 45-64. Most of the housing in this area is public housing.

Community Services reports that public housing covers more ground than any other type of housing or building type in the area and that employment income is low compare to other census tracts.30 Media and society bombard the public with consumerist messaging. How can a population of people so constrained economically negotiate life within such a consumerist ideology?

Youth are told they must possess material objects to be fully actualized human beings with positive self-identities, to be worthy of respect or even to be seen as attractive. Since they lack legitimate financial means, and the skills and the opportunities to legally obtain finances, these young people resort to illegal means.31 Renowned social scientist and former Columbia University professor,

Robert K. Merton referred to this as “innovation”. Rather than conform to acceptable societal practices in obtaining their goals, Merton posited that a majority of the time, innovators deviate, using means that are outside of

30 Halifax Inner City Initiative, “Gender and Poverty Report,” 2003, 3.

31 Tony Campolo, Revolution and Renewal: How Churches Are Saving Our Cities (Louisville: Westminister John Knox Press, 2000), 206-207.

acceptable societal norms—means that are usually illegal.32 The consequences, short and long term, are rarely considered. They are not seen as real or relevant. The goal in life becomes to attain that which is perceived to meet the immediate material need and bring happiness into an otherwise unhappy existence.

Moreover, there may be a sense of responsibility attached to the goal of material attainment. Older siblings in a household (especially a single-parent household—the single parent most likely being a mother) may feel an obligation to make some contribution to the household finances. This kind of pressure may be the child’s own internal invention of expectation that comes from seeing the family struggle or it may be thrust upon the child by the parent or adult authority.

Whatever its origins, it causes some teens to drop out of school to look for some sort of “hustle”. It is not unusual among the economically poor to find young boys who have given up on their education.

This may be because of difficulty with school, or because of this need to bring more money into the household. Their truancy leads to their becoming engaged in some kind of illicit and illegal activity as they consequently become prey for those who would lure them into criminal enterprise as a means of earning fast money.

32 Robert K. Merton developed five theories of adaptation, explaining how individuals adopt cultural values. Merton states that “innovation” happens when social goals are accepted by an individual, but the legitimate means of obtaining those goals are either rejected or unavailable due to financial or other societal constraints. Innovation is associated with high crime rates among the uneducated and the poor. For further details see Merton’s work, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York, NY: Free Press, 1968).

Impact of History on the Problem

In his book, Crisis in the Village (2007), Robert Franklin, President of

Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA), offers some facts that should be understood about black families, many of which have contributed to the ongoing marginalization of blacks in North America. Franklin writes that Africans were brought to [North America] to work. “Their owners never intended them to experience conventional family bonds.” They were considered tools of labor and capital, much like ploughs and shovels. When the Atlantic slave trade ended in

1808, no new Africans were being brought to America, but the US slave population skyrocketed because breeding was encouraged to keep the wheels of capitalism spinning. Franklin states,

The compulsory impregnation of black women did not involve human bonds of commitment, romantic intimacy, or sustained care. Indeed, most of the population growth was the result of rape and coercion by Euro-American masters, their sons, and male slaves. The wombs of black women became a commodity for driving the engine of capitalism by supplying it with a steady supply of new laborers.33

This is the legacy of peoples of the African Diaspora all over the globe.

After 400 years of such regard, it has been a 200-year struggle to rebuild pride, worth, and esteem into the hearts and minds of a people that have been thusly

33 Robert M. Franklin, Crisis in the Village: Restoring Hope in African American Communities (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 42.

treated. Some would argue that though the status of blacks has changed legally, racial inequality and the disparate treatment of blacks in North America and perhaps other parts of the world has not changed, but is merely gone underground and attacks in less overt ways.

Franklin also points out that black men and women “pioneered” the notion of “modern marriage” in which both spouses worked to contribute to the household. This was simply a financial reality for blacks. Most often, black women’s work was in the homes of whites as nannies and housekeepers. Black women were in the labor force long before white women entered it.34

Black women’s work in white households often resulted in the neglect of their own homes. In many cases, they lived with the white family a part of the week or they did not return home until late in the evening after their own children were in bed. All of these dynamics have been devastating to blacks. Extreme poverty has also played a part in the crisis of rising black male incarceration.

Until reforms in the US welfare system in the 1980s, male absence was systemically encouraged from the home so that there would be no reduction in the financial benefit to low-income single mothers. Similar patterns are emerging in Canada. Research reported by the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada shows that father absence has been a major contributing factor in the unhealthy development of boys. In Canada, “males experience a higher dropout rate from school, they attend university less, they have a higher suicide rate, higher rates

34 Franklin, 44.

of homelessness and they are more likely today than in the past to live at home with their parents between the ages of 20 and 29. Canadians are marrying less, living together more, and experiencing higher rates of marital breakdown than in prior decades.” In 2010, 59% of Canadian undergraduates were women. In

2009 in Canada, the unemployment rate was 9.4% for men and 7.0% for women.

There has been a steady decline in marriage in Canada over the last 20 years, with only 69% of families having married partners in 2006. With many more common-law relationships, which are more easily dissolved, Canada is experiencing a high degree of father-absence.35

These are all major contributing factors to the increase in petty criminality among black youth, predominantly male. In her groundbreaking work on the criminal justice system, US civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander examines the policies and practices that have dramatically increased the prison population in the US since the 1970s. Incarceration rates have quintupled in the last 40 years.

Alexander states that the US has created “a vast new legal system for racial control” resulting in what Alexander refers to as a “permanent underclass of disenfranchised convicted felons who are overwhelmingly black and Latino.”36

This work addresses the growth of such a class in Halifax, Nova Scotia as many of the same policies and practices begin to take shape in Canada.

35 Andrea Mrozek, The Status of Men. (Ottawa: Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, 2010), 7-8.

36 Amy Frykholm, The Christian Century: “Criminal Injustice”, Vol. 129, No. 10, May 16, 2012, 22-25. A discussion with Michelle Alexander on her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. (New York: The New Press, 2012).

With a stated aim to reduce crime, Tory legislators introduced two new crime bills in 2006 that would enforce minimum mandatory sentences for offenders involved in arms and drug trafficking. Mandatory sentences take away the discretion of the judicial branch of the government, so that even first time offenders must be locked up for a pre-determined amount of time, despite mitigating or possibly extenuating circumstances. Those opposed to mandatory sentencing predict that the practice in Canada would increase the federal prison population by 3% and the provincial by 15-20% a year, creating a need for more prison facilities. Those new facilities would be filled with Aboriginals and African

Canadians that are already over-represented in the prison system.37 Alexander argues that it is the US policy on mandatory sentencing that has probably done the most to quintuple prison populations and create the monstrous complex of institutions and institutional supports and economies that the US taxpayer now sustains. Alexander points out how this system has thrived and perpetuated itself at the expense of lost futures for those who have been caught in its insidious grip.38 Those who oppose such practices in Canada point to the US record of increased crime, increased incarceration rates, and recidivism as proof that mandatory sentencing does not deter crime. Instead, mandatory sentencing creates a larger prison population filled disproportionately with the non-white and economically disadvantaged segment of the populace.

37Tories Introduce New Criminal Justice Bills: Mandatory Minimums, More Prisons. http://www.prisonjustice.ca/starkravenarticles/tory_govnt_proposals_0406.html (accessed December 28, 2012).

38 Frykholm, 22-25.

Supporting the opposition to mandatory sentencing is the report created as a result of the Halifax Regional Municipality Mayor’s Roundtable on Violence.

The report is presented in the next chapter showing the increase in incarceration of minorities since the new Canadian legislation took effect.

The Mandate of the Church

Scripture is clear that life is a wonderful gift. Living long, enjoyable lives is the aim of most people.39 Street violence arbitrarily takes lives and destroys lives. The Church that claims the Bible as its ultimate source of truth and guidance, must abide by its precepts. One such precept is that killing is wrong.40

To draw any other conclusion would be theologically negligent. It is a mandate of the Church to promote peace and peaceable living. God is the One who is supposed to exact revenge and advocate for us. If one is to say that this word is applicable only to those who believe then again I challenge with the mandate of the Church, which is to make believers. Our mission, given by Christ Jesus is to spread the gospel to everyone. Spreading the gospel requires us to be witnesses of its truth. In our witness we are to teach all that Christ has taught us.

Christ has taught us to love in the same way that he has loved us. That love is

39 Deut. 6:2; Eph. 6:3

40 Ex. 20:13; Matt. 5:21

sacrificial and demands that we act in love, wanting the best possible outcome for the object(s) of our love. Consequently, we who are disciples are to make more disciples by showing them the way of truth and deliverance from every evil that plagues them, including street violence.

Some members of society that have been marginalized as a lingering by- product of colonialism41 cannot fully participate in society and have taken desperate, dangerous methods to meet their needs. Carol Aylward, law professor at Dalhousie University, has chronicled the history of legislation that seeks to address race and the disparate treatment of people of colour in

Canadian history. Aylward emphasizes that though Canada has long defined itself as a welcoming multicultural society, it has shadowed the same racist practices as its neighbor to the south, the United States.42

Enslavement was practiced for over 200 years on Canadian soil. Slavery

"contributed to the wealth and privilege of Canada's early white elite and simultaneously placed the black population in a position of profound social

41 Colonialism is the practice of settling land outside of your country and subjugating its native people to the practices, rules, and or authority of your country. Colonies are the result of new settlers usurping the indigenous population’s claim to the land they have always occupied. Colonizers believe their way of life and customs are superior to the natives. Nova Scotia’s settlement by Britain and France subjugated the aboriginal population. Likewise, most people of African descent arrived in Nova Scotia as slaves, freed slaves, or colonized people (by Britain or France) from the Caribbean and West Indies until the 1930’s – 40’s. The history of Halifax is further discussed in chapter 3 of this paper. As it pertains here, I maintain that racial discrimination and marginalization of peoples persists because the colonial mindset persists, even after a colony is dissolved. It is this mindset of superiority of those who were once settlers that prohibits all residents from participating fully in the society.

42 Carol A. Aylward, Canadian Critical Race Theory: Racism and the Law (Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing, 1999), 39-44.

disadvantage."43 Black Loyalists were denied the same rights and privileges as other British citizens, black settlers were subjected to white hostility in race riots in 1784, blacks in Canada were subjected to segregation in schools (as late as

1964 in Ontario), restricted from property ownership, and blacks were not allowed to participate as full citizens in society.44

The lingering effects of colonialism include the racist attitudes that perpetuated such practices. They are manifest currently in the form of organizations that oppose the immigration of blacks into the country today, and in institutional racism that persists in the public school system in the form of racist teachers, culturally biased curriculums, and streaming of children into remedial programs. 45

All persons should be able to participate equally in all aspects of society as full and equal citizens. Throughout the gospels, Jesus championed the cause of disenfranchised people. He rescued the woman caught in adultery (John

8:10-11) and revealed truth to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:25-26).

Jesus ate with tax-collectors and sinners (Matt. 9:10-11) and touched lepers and healed them. (Luke 17:12-14) He allowed himself to be ministered to by people of questionable reputation. (Luke 7:37-39) These were people on the margins.

43 Scot Wortley and Akwash Owusu-Bempah, "Crime and Justice: The Experiences of Black Canadians" in Diversity, Crime and Justice in Canada, Barbara Perry, ed. (Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2011), 125-148.

44 Scot Wortley and Akwash Owusu-Bempah, 127.

45 Scot Wortley and Akwash Owusu-Bempah, 128.

These were people disregarded by the religious leaders—the Pharisees and

Sadducees46-- and scorned by the general populace.

Jesus came alongside these people that society had outcast to show that they too had worth. When society marginalizes and excludes an entire population of people because of race or economic status, systems that should serve all become inaccessible to them. The marginalized become disenfranchised and cannot fully participate in society because they have been denied the opportunities that the dominant class enjoys. They are the ones left to scramble for the crumbs after the children have eaten. But even this injustice,

Jesus reverses.

In his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman recorded in Matthew 15 and Mark 7, Jesus shows us that those we tend to consider as second-class or undeserving are very much a part of God’s kingdom. We do not have the right to exclude those that God would include.

But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matt. 15:25-28)

46 The Pharisees were Jewish religious leaders, prominent in the 1st century BCE and 1st century CE, who urged strict adherence to the oral and written laws of Moses. They believed the written law was open to interpretation. The Sadducees were also a Jewish sect. They dismissed the oral law and stressed adherence to the literal interpretation of the written law. Both groups were violently opposed to Jesus Christ.

This woman’s persistence in the cause of her daughter exemplifies the level of commitment and purpose, persistence and insistence that disciples of Christ are to have in seeking the well-being and justice for all members of society, but especially those who have been silenced through their lack of material resource, their dependence of the very systems they would reform, and the isolation and hopelessness society has successfully accomplished, especially in areas of

“spatially concentrated racialized poverty”.47

In further contention with God’s design of an equal, just, and accessible society, the over-representation of people of color in the criminal justice system and in prisons is an indication of ongoing societal inequities and disparate practices at a time when the playing field is supposed to be level and discriminatory practices have allegedly ceased.

God’s people are urged to fight injustice and seek the well-being of all.48

This is most often achieved in community. Human beings need to feel

“connected” to those they champion. When we create a population of people that are not legally allowed to participate in the society around them, there is a disconnection. That disconnection can lead to destructive behavior that may

47 This is a phrase coined by Professor Jim Silver, PhD in his work on urban renewal and public housing projects in Canada, “Public Housing Risks and Alternatives: Uniacke Square in North End Halifax”, 2008, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Nova Scotia. Silver discusses what should have been some of the obvious outcomes of “ghettoizing” low income people (typically, blacks) in high density subsidized housing complexes. Silver is the Director of Urban and Inner City Studies at the University of Winnipeg.

48 Amos 5:24; Matt. 23:23, 25:45

have disastrous consequences. If we are to be the Church—the living body of

Christ—we have a responsibility to connect with those who may feel disconnected.

The Biblical Response

Nicholas Healy, author and professor of Theology and Religious Studies at St. John’s University, New York, points out that more and more we are unable to operate as the church Jesus intends because we have lost a sense of our own community.49 The church consists of local congregations all over the world comprising denominations and independents, few of whom are “coherent and consistent”.

Certainly it is important to remember that doctrines are not something handed down from heaven to us fully formed, that Christianity can be conceived and practiced only with regard to historicity and lived experience, that we are formed by groups and individuals around us, and that we can be Christians only if we think and act in ways that draw upon at least some of the resources the church provides us. 50

If the church is not clear who it is and what it is to do and be, then the challenge becomes ever greater as to how we are to affect those around us.

49 Nicholas Healy, The Christian Century: “In and of the world”, Vol. 129, No. 10, May 16, 2012, 26-31.

50 Healy, 27.

Healy reminds us, however, that in our struggle to define, we cannot neglect. As we wrestle with our need to be those whom God has sent into the world as witnesses, we cannot forgo our obligation to the very people to whom we are sent to witness.

By coming alongside the woman caught in adultery, publicans and sinners, beggars and lepers, Jesus shows us that we cannot be afraid to go where others will not. We cannot be hesitant to champion the cause of justice.

Lives are hanging in the balance. We must be instantaneous. We must be expedient. We must be Christ. To a world that has lost its moral compass, to a population of people that have lost their connection, to governments and systems that have gone awry, to those who suffer the devastating consequences of the unfortunate choices of others, we must be Christ.

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" 37 He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise. (Luke 10: 36-37)

Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you… I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live… (Deut. 30:11a, 19b)

As we watch more and more of civil society deteriorate and the present generation self-destruct, I submit that we—the Church—have thus far not chosen rightly. Too often the Church has been in the background, not being faithful to its mandate and not upholding its gospel message in any real sense. The 30

Church has been the priest that has walked by the wounded declaring, “Unclean!

Unclean!” Too often the Church, the steward and administrator of God’s precious gifts of love, grace, mercy, and truth has failed in its distribution of those gifts. We have passed by on the other side of the street for fear of our safety and survival. But as Christ sacrificed himself for the Church, we are called to sacrifice for each other. We are sent into the world as witnesses, not only in word, but in deed. Our response to the crisis in the village must be immediate and without hesitation.

It is our responsibility as those who love God and proclaim him as Lord to do all we can, while we can, to stem the tide of violence in our society. At the time of this writing, there has been:

 a mass shooting at a theatre in Aurora, Colorado, killing twelve (12)

people and wounding fifty-eight (58),

 gunfire sprayed in the crowd of a block party in Scarborough, Ontario

(Greater Toronto Area), killing a fourteen (14) year old girl and a twenty-

three (23) year old man, and wounding dozens of others,

 a shooting at the Eaton centre in Toronto, leaving two (2) people dead and

six (6) injured,

 a twenty-three (23) year old shot and killed in North Preston (Dartmouth),

 a shooting in midday on one of Halifax’s busiest streets, Quinpool Road,

leaving one man injured. 31

The shooting death of the young man in North Preston in July made the ninth

(9th) homicide victim in Halifax in 2012. In most cases, the perpetrator is also a young man.

Violence itself is not new to the city or to Halifax. It is the nature of the violence that has changed. A barroom brawl between drunken sailors, targeting a person for pick-pocketing or even having a violent confrontation with a particular person in a dispute is quite different from teenagers matter-of-factly toting pistols and automatic weapons. In the 1970s and 80s, one might hear in the Canadian news about mobsters like Edwin Boyd, Richard Blass, or the West

End Gang in Montreal or Toronto. But Halifax was not notorious for gang violence. The children in the neighborhood would not be armed. Today it is teenaged children who are participating in drive-by shootings, children gunning each other down in neighborhoods, and a youth culture that has been so de-sensitized to violence and death that little value seems to b placed on a human life. It is troubling trend. Surely, the Church has a responsibility in these matters, not only to conduct funeral services and offer solace to survivors, but to raise awareness of the escalating problem, to rally government and community leadership, and to implement strategies aimed at addressing the systemic causes of exclusion, thereby reducing strain and deviant behavior.51

51 Strain theory states that individuals experience stress / strain when social structures are prohibitive and prevent the attainment of desired societal goals by legitimate means. Sociologist Robert K. Merton advanced the thought that criminal activity is often the result of such strain. Critics of strain theory point out that it does not account for crimes committed for reasons other than meeting material needs. For further detail on strain theory, see Merton’s Social Theory 32

Jesus instructs the Church to seek justice and encourage peace.52 The

Church must champion the rights of the poor and the oppressed. The Church must be the voice of reason that engages on all levels, speaking truth to power by confronting government, coming alongside families to teach and equip better parenting and familial relationships, and reaching out to build hope in the hearts of children who feel hopeless and who have lost their connection to community.

A recent survey found that 45% of Ontario residents believe there is a strong relationship between race and criminality, and two-thirds of respondents believe that "blacks" are the most crime-prone.53

...Canada, despite its international reputation for being a tolerant, multicultural society, was built on a legacy of colonialism and racism. This legacy, not surprisingly, has had a profound impact on the country's black population.54

The anger, bitterness and resentment that grip the hearts of many of those that experience marginalization rooted in racist attitudes in Canadian society are, as God stated to Cain, spiritual warfare. The enemy is crouching at the door.

His desire is to kill our children, thereby wiping us out from the earth. We are in an eternal battle not of our making, but nevertheless, one in which we play a role and Social Structure (New York, NY: Free Press, 1968) and Advances in Criminological Theory: The Legacy of Anomie v. 6., ed. Freda Adler and William S. Laufer (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishing, 1999).

52 Matt. 23:23

53 Scot Wortley and Akwash Owusu-Bempah, 130.

54 Scot Wortley and Akwash Owusu-Bempah, 127.

as the saved—the elect citizens of God’s kingdom. As his Church, we have made our allegiance to God. The enemy that God identifies to Cain in Genesis

4:6-7 is a tangible evil that seeks to destroy humankind, our children and our children’s children. We need not fear. Our God is all-powerful. The city can be redeemed. But the Church must begin to choose rightly. It is only then that future generations may live and prosper.

Reclaiming the City

As we look at the trends of violence around us, people begin to demonize the city as the place of evil. A common saying among some of the older country people in Nova Scotia is that “the city has no pity” (a quote shared with me by a rural parishioner when I was moving to Halifax). There are echoes of this sentiment in the stories of cities found in the biblical witness. The Tower of Babel story gives a first glimpse of a misguided city (Gen. 11:4-8). The downward spiral of Sodom and Gomorrah into sexual perverseness (Gen. 18:20-32), the idolatry of Athens (Acts 17:16), and the waywardness of Jerusalem (Matt. 23:37) all testify to the reputation of trouble associated with large concentrations of people who somehow lose their way in pursuit of personal gain, top-tier career aspirations, social status, and other selfish and self-serving desires. God declared that if ten righteous men could be found in Sodom, he would not destroy

the city. Because he did destroy it, we can infer that not even ten could be found!

The Apostle Paul longed to visit Rome. Paul acknowledged a body of believers there, but Rome was the seat of the Roman Empire that exalted the emperor as a god to be worshiped and to whom its citizens must pay obeisance.55 One ‘like a son of man’ admonishes the seven churches in the cities of Asia Minor: Ephesus was told to repent and turn back to Christ. Smyrna was reminded that though they were materially poor, they were rich in spirit and should persevere. Pergamum was instructed to repent and reject the teaching of

Balaam, “who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and practice fornication.” Thyatira was warned against tolerating false prophets who were misleading the people.

Sardis was told to wake up and walk in obedience to God by doing the work they were called to do. Philadelphia was encouraged to endure to the end and let no one take their crown. Laodicea was rebuked for mistaking material wealth for spiritual wealth, believing they were rich when they were actually poor. 56

Throughout the Bible, the city is depicted as a place of debauchery, depravity, and violence.

This image of the city is continued in Mark’s gospel. Mark infers in his writing that Jesus as an itinerant preacher was fine until he ventured into the city.

55 Rom. 1.

56 Rev. 2-3.

When Jesus confronts the religious leaders in Jerusalem, he is killed. Mark depicts the city as a place of crime and corruption. As long as Jesus stayed in the countryside, in the regions of Galilee and Capernaum, Tyre and Sidon, and

Caesarea Philippi, he was safe and things went well. Religious leaders and

Pharisees opposed him, but they did not take action against him. However, in

Mark there is a shift:

See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him… (Mark 10:33-34a )

Jesus’ entry into the city puts him in mortal danger. Anecdotally, this is still a lingering belief among human beings today. The city can be a place of excitement and opportunity, but it can also be a place of danger. Many believe the city is unfriendly and unsafe and that one must be on the alert at all times in the city.

Some of this tension around the city is discussed by retired Hollis

Professor of Divinity at Harvard, Harvey Cox in describing the central thesis of his earlier work, The Secular City. Cox argues that “secularization—if it is not permitted to calcify into an ideology (which I called "secular- ism")—is not everywhere and always an evil. It prevents powerful religions from acting on their theocratic pretensions. It allows people to choose among a wider range of

worldviews.” 57 Reciprocally, Cox maintains, a religious resurgence is not always a good thing. Both secularization and religious revival are morally ambiguous.

“Both can heal and destroy” depending on context. Accepting that God is present in the secular as well as in the religious realm of life, frees people of faith from the fear of secular contamination. It allows God into spaces that otherwise may have barred the divine presence.58

Although the reputation of the city is marred with its ills, the careful Bible reader will also see that God’s view of the city is different from these human perspectives. While the “son of man” admonishes in Revelation, he still upholds the positive points of each city he names. It is important to note that at the end of the church age when God’s kingdom is fully come, God redeems the city.

Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 both recount how Jesus wept over

Jerusalem because it was a city that was lost. His cry for their acceptance of truth and to do what is right is the plea he makes for us today. The city is not forsaken, but in point of fact, is the place that will be the future abode of God.

Even while the Israelites are in exile, God instructs them not to be afraid but to settle in, plant trees, build houses, have children, and work for the peace and prosperity of the city where they are.59 God makes a profound statement in

57 Harvey Cox, “The Secular City 25 Years Later”, The Christian Century, November 7, 1990,1025-1029.

58 Ibid.

59 Jer. 29:5-7

verse 7 when he says that the welfare of the city determines the welfare of the people.

It is precisely this point urban theologians, such as Dieter Georgi and

Harvie Conn, stress in their works.60 The Church is called upon to find new ways to reach the distressed and discouraged in the city. The city is not a place to be shunned, but one where we may enter into the work of God among people who perhaps need God most. Urban theology is a form of liberation theology that seeks to better the lives of people living on the fringes of society, closing the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” by empowering the oppressed and marginalized to more victorious living. In reviewing the book by urban theologian

Chris Shannahan, religion professor Paul Ballard (University of Cardiff) quotes:

A new paradigm in urban theology is needed which addresses contemporary urban society in its dynamic complexity and provides new resources for the struggles of those who are "left out and left behind" on the shifting sands of twenty-first-century society, (p. 221)61

60 Dieter Georgi’s The City in the Valley: Biblical Interpretation and Urban Theology (Society of Biblical Literature (November 30, 2005) and Harvie Conn’s Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City, & the People of God co-authored by Manny Ortiz (Illinois: IVP; 2001) are influential works in the area of urban theology. Georgi (deceased in 2005) was formerly the Frothingham Professor of the History of Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Conn (deceased 1999) was the professor of missions, emeritus, at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.

61 Paul H. Ballard. 2011. "Voices from the borderland: re-imagining cross-cultural urban theology in the twenty-first century."Practical Theology 4, no. 3: 363-365.

Urban theologians seek ways to address the challenges of urban living by re- visioning the city as a place of tremendous promise, employing culturally relevant, and biblically sound ways to meet the needs of its inhabitants.

The final victory of Christ over evil and the establishment of God’s kingdom in Revelation 21:2-3 describes the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven as the new habitation of God. The city is a key element of the new creation. It is in the city where God and man will dwell together. God himself will be the light of the city. God redeems the city and renews it to fulfill its destiny as the place where God and humankind consummate their reconciled relationship.

Summary

When the divine presence appeared to Moses in the burning bush and instructed him to go to the pharaoh in Egypt to advocate for the liberation of the

Israelites, Moses asked who should he say had sent him. "Tell them ‘I will do what I will do’ has sent you." That was all the name Moses had for the moment.

After the liberation, as their understanding of and interaction with God changed, the Israelites needed other titles to reflect their current experience. “Rather than clinging stubbornly to antiquated appellations or anxiously synthesizing new

ones, perhaps, like Moses, we must simply take up the work of liberating the captives, confident that we will be granted a new name by events of the future.”62

Every person has principles, values, beliefs, needs, and /or desires which drive them internally. The internal locus of control ignited by external forces or circumstances which may be out of one’s control, combine together to direct thought and action. The Bible teaches that humankind must learn to master emotion and the internal drivers so that the external cannot lead a person to disastrous, often destructive consequences. One of the roles of the Church is to teach and train people to achieve that mastery. It is the Church’s mandate to lead individuals and society to adopt a just and gracious attitude towards one another as we seek to reflect the character of our Creator. Just as Jesus championed the downtrodden and outcast, so should we.

The city, generally characterized as the place of riotous living, where priorities are skewed and destructive consequences result from a negative combination of the internal and external, is the environment where we most often see those who desperately need a champion. Jesus shows us by his example that we can be a friend and helper to those in the city. In this way, even the city, with its sordid reputation can become a place of redemption. The church can help reclaim the city from being a desert of distress and destruction to being a wellspring of deliverance.

The Bible portrays a God who is present in the jagged reality of conflict and dislocation, calling the faithful into the crowded ways, not away from

62 Cox, 1025.

them…If the divine mystery is present in a special way among the poorest and most misused of his or her children, as the biblical images and stories—from the slaves in Egypt to the official lynching of Jesus—constantly remind us, then allegedly religious people who insulate themselves from the city are putting themselves at considerable risk. By removing ourselves from the despised and the outcast we are at the same time insulating ourselves from God, and it is in the cities that these, "the least of them," are to be found.63

Followers of Christ—the Church—are called to participate in this redeeming work of God for his cities. God is faithful. It is not too hard. We have only to ask God’s guidance and obey his precepts. God has told us what is required of us as mere mortals: “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God…” (Micah 6:8b)

In the following chapter, as we consider the various aspects of the city and the role of the Church, the researcher’s context will be shared in greater detail.

This will help the reader gain a fuller understanding of the history that has led to this study.

63 Cox, 1028.

CHAPTER 3

THE IMMEDIATE CONTEXT: HALIFAX NORTH END

In this chapter the history of the proposed study area will be explored, outlining the area’s growth and decline. This chapter will also frame the study area’s demographic and ethnographic composition. Professor Jim Silver describes the city where the study area is located:

Halifax is the capital of Nova Scotia, and effectively the economic and cultural centre of Atlantic Canada. Built around Halifax harbour, the second largest natural ice-free port in the world, the city is home to two world-class container terminals, is a major multi- modal transport hub that is the gateway to Canada for the movement of freight from the east, and is the headquarters of the east coast Navy and Coast Guard. Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) is home to six universities and the largest and most sophisticated health facilities in the region, boasts an attractive downtown harbour-front with a well-maintained historic district, offers a natural environment in its surrounding areas that is exceptionally attractive, and is a major tourist centre. 64

Located within this idyllic-sounding city is an area that local residents refer to as the North End. The name “North End” is a geographical reference to the neighborhood’s location north of the original town bounded by Citadel Hill. One of the North End’s main thoroughfares is Gottingen Street. It is the area

64 Jim Silver, “Public Housing Risks and Alternatives: Uniacke Square in North End Halifax” (Policy Paper, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Nova Scotia, 2008), 3.

including and immediately surrounding Gottingen Street that is the focus of this study.

Currently, the Gottingen street area of Halifax is a culturally and ethnically diverse neighborhood. On any given day you may find college-aged hipsters, life-long residents, and newly transplanted condo-dwellers all gathered in one of few remaining neighborhood eateries. Eclectic groups of diverse cultures are nothing new for this part of the city. The Gottingen Street area has always been a place of convergence of cultures and socio-economic variety.65

But far from its historic presence as a place of vibrancy and convergence in the city is the deepening shadow of fear for safety and concern over the change that has occurred in the once highly magnetic area of town. In a recent poll of 500 residents with a margin for error of 4.4% published in the

“MetroNews”, 27 May 2010 edition, Bristol Omnifacts Research reported that nearly half of those polled say they avoid the areas of Gottingen Street and

Uniacke Street due to safety reasons. What has happened to the area that has caused this change of perspective? How has the area changed over the years from a bustling mecca to a place of avoidance?

65 Anecdotes abound amongst older Haligonians who remember Gottingen Street as the destination for shopping, eating, and entertainment. The Nova Scotia Archives has contributed to a collection of photographs of the area on a website located at http://spacing.ca/atlantic/2010/11/12/from-the-vaults-gottingen-street/ (accessed September 28, 2011). The site hosts pictures dating from the 1880’s through the 1960’s, showing the theatres, restaurants, and sundry stores that made Gottingen Street a bustling commercial district. The history detailed in this chapter chronicles the change in the area from 1950 to present day.

The Establishment of a City

A contemporary visitor might find it hard to believe that North End Halifax was once the center of energy for the growth and boom of the Nova Scotia metro area now called the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM). It bustled and thrived with the energy of most growing cities in North America in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The discovery and settlement of new lands fueled the curiosity, ingenuity, and pioneering spirits of settlers who came to build better lives for themselves.

Halifax was founded in 1749 by Colonel Edward Cornwallis (1713-1776), who led an expedition of some 2500 settlers into its harbor to establish a British military fortification. The city was named for George Montague, Earl of Halifax, dubbed “Chief Lord of Trade and Plantations”. 66 Halifax was established as a strategic holding by the British, not only because of its position on the Atlantic, but also in answer to and in opposition of France securing the Louisbourg harbor in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1714. Louisbourg was a well-fortified, walled city and one of the busiest seaports in the eighteenth century.

Halifax was founded as a garrison town, the center of which was the

Citadel. The vantage view of Citadel Hill—an ideal place for a defensive hilltop fort-- allowed safe harbor for ships. According to Erickson, the foundational grid

66 Thomas B. Akins, History of Halifax City (Dartmouth, NS: Brook House Press, 2002), 3-5.

of the newly established town is what is considered the downtown core today.

The original Halifax was the downtown area that is bounded by Water Street on the east, Salter and Blowers Streets to the south, on the west by Brunswick

Street, and the north by Scotia Square. (See Figure 1) The town was surrounded by a wooden palisade to protect it from the French and the native people called the Mi’kmaq. The palisade incorporated five perimeter forts, the north forts being Fort Lutrell and Fort Grenadier. At that time there was only a cleared strip of land outside the town gate and beyond that, the wilderness of the interior.67

It was Charles Morris who ventured to create north and south suburbs of the fortified town. The north suburbs extended toward North Street and the south towards South Street. Between 1750-52 protestant immigrants from Germany,

France and Switzerland began to arrive in Halifax. These immigrants were

"redemptioners” indebted to their recruiting agent for their fares to Nova Scotia.

Their debts were subsequently assumed by the government which required them to pay off the debt by working on the fortifications in and around Halifax. These early settlers doubled the population and set about building the town. The majority was German and they settled in the north suburbs. Their predominance and lack of English language skills caused the area to come to be known as

67 Paul A. Erickson, Historic North End Halifax (Halifax, NS: Nimbus Publishing, 2004), viii.

Dutch (Deutsche) Town. 68 The history of the settlement of Germans in Nova

Scotia is recorded by the German Canadian Association:

Nova Scotia was home to Canada's oldest cohesive German settlement, which developed between 1750 and 1753 when 2400 Protestant southwest German farmers and tradesmen landed with their families in Halifax. They were recruited by British agents to strengthen Britain's position in Acadia vis-à-vis the French. Handbill advertisements had been posted throughout central Europe, and 'Foreign Protestants', mainly from agricultural communities along

68 Erickson, ix.

the Rhine River corridor, responded to the offer and emigrated to Nova Scotia. Most came from the Upper Rhine area of present-day Germany, from the French- and German-speaking Swiss cantons, and from the French-speaking principality of Montbéliard (now part of France).69

The first wave of immigrants had been given land lots in the north suburb of Halifax. But in 1753 the government decided to relocate the new influx of

German protestants to what was to become Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Some remained in Halifax and some returned later, therefore the German influence has remained over the centuries. Streets such as Gottingen, Gerrish, Lockman (now north Barrington) and Brunswick were named for German locations and people.

The first Lutheran church in Canada was the Little Dutch Church “erected” by

German residents n 1756 at the corner of Brunswick & Gerrish streets. It was a barn moved to the land that had been designated as a burial ground for early settlers who had died from what was presumed a typhus epidemic. The Little

Dutch Church still stands over 250 years later. It is the second oldest building in

Halifax, the oldest being St. Paul’s Anglican Church built in 1749.

Halifax’s development as a city is integrally tied to its development as a naval foothold. As a port in which ships docked, it also needed to be a place where ships could be serviced and maintained. Hence the development of the naval dockyard along what is now Barrington street. For the purposes of this

69 German Canadian Association of Nova Scotia, http://www.germancanadianassociation.ca/new/eng/about-us-heritage.html (accessed September 26, 2011).

work, I will not discuss at length the city’s military development except as it relates to the development and decline of the North End. Suffice it to say at this point in the city’s history, naval installations began to take shape along with all of the supporting infrastructure to those installations and to their personnel. Halifax, as a city by the sea, was vulnerable in its beginnings because it had to defend its harbor from enemies attempting to seize it from the opposite shore, but the town was also vulnerable from landside attacks. It was exposed to attack from the rear where troops could cross the peninsula isthmus and make their way toward town from the peninsular roads–Windsor Street and Lady Hammond Road. At that time, these roads were surrounded by open farmland—relatively easy to attack.70

The new threat of attack fostered by the development of the naval dockyard led to the government expropriation of North End properties to be used for fortifications. Colonel William Spry’s work of securing the city and naval installations led to the building of blockhouses and bastions in the northern part of the city as well as Fort Coote on North Street and Fort Needham off northernmost Gottingen Street (now Novalea). The fortification at Needham made it possible for the British to detect any advance along Lady Hammond

Road, Gottingen Street, or Windsor Street.

Since it was born as a garrison town, Halifax experienced ebbs and flows associated with the cycles of war and peace time. Its existence revolved around

70 Erickson, x.

the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolutionary War, the Napoleanic Wars, and the War of 1812. These wars brought times of “progression and recession, with employment and fortunes soaring and falling with the comings and goings of

Imperial forces”.71 It was a town that initially found its prosperity in being war- driven, and of course, its decline in post-war recession. After the War of 1812,

Halifax had to redefine itself as something other than a military town. It was officially incorporated by 1841 with a population exceeding 14,000, with about one-fifth of the residents living in the North End. By the 1850s its water supply was a chain of lakes off the mainland. This is significant because it pushed the city’s first line of defense off the peninsula.

Also at this time, a change in ordnance technology rendered old fortifications like Citadel Hill obsolete as smooth-bore cannon was replaced with breech-loading ammunition. The plentiful tax-exempt military property littering the city became less important than the new mercantile properties springing up.

Erickson posits that this time marked the beginning of Nova Scotia’s Bluenose era. 72 As the town began to boom, the North End continued to attract residents and businessmen, alike. Historically, the North End is bounded by downtown,

Citadel Hill, the Halifax Common, and Robie (in some places Windsor) Street.

The North End developed first and consequently is considered still the most culturally diverse area of the city.

71 Mike Parker, Fortress Halifax: Portrait of a Garrison Town (Halifax, NS: Nimbus Publishing, 2004), 107.

72 Erickson, xi.

Brunswick Street became the most prestigious street in the north suburbs.

It boasted harbor views, spacious lots, and just the right distance from crowded downtown. It began to fill with Georgian and Victorian mansions and landmark churches. Expansion continued with houses beginning to spring up on

Creighton’s and Maynard’s fields, two streets that were undeveloped to this time.

On Gottingen Street, north of North Street, villas with wrought-iron gates and carriage lanes were built. The harbor also experienced its own sprawl as businesses and wharves crowded in.

It is interesting to note that at this time Halifax was still pre-industrial, so newly arriving immigrants such as the Irish (which represented one-third of the population by the time of incorporation) were not forced into an urban proletariat class and therefore experienced little discrimination. Because of this dynamic,

Halifax failed to develop “a conspicuous European ethnic “inner city””. The absence of large ethnic enclaves characterized the North End before the transformation brought about by railways and industry.73

Rise and Decline of the North End

Once the railways were built and wharves that allowed for greater trade in the harbor, the North End began to experience a change in its topography and its population. Dockyard activity such as the Halifax Graving Dock Company that

73 Erickson, xii.

worked on large, steel-hulled ships and manufacturing plants that were built such as the Moir’s factory on Argyle Street sent the gentry and professionals who had settled along the prestigious Brunswick Street and Gottingen Street area fleeing to the South end, escaping the noise of industry that had invaded their neighborhoods. Consequently, more of the blue-collar working class populated the North end so that they could be close to their work at the harbor and in the manufacturing plants that had sprang up. The South end then became the more affluent part of the city and has remained so to this day.

To house the necessary workforce, owners of nearby North End dwellings carved them up into flats, apartments and rooms. As a result, the housing stock, already frayed from decades of use and neglect, deteriorated even more.74

From this North End neighborhood with its deteriorated housing stock, many thousands of residents would relocate to the suburbs in the years following the

Second World War.

It is not clear exactly when the first blacks settled in Halifax. Dr. Bridglal

Pachai states that there were 4908 blacks in Nova Scotia in 1851 and the largest number, 1688, had settled in Halifax county.75 Following the War of 1812, many of the blacks who had settled in areas surrounding Halifax (Preston and

Hammonds Plains) migrated to the city and took up residence in what has come to be known as Africville.

74 Erickson, xvii.

75 Bridglal Pachai, The Nova Scotia Black Experience Through the Centuries (Halifax, NS: Nimbus Publishing, 2007), 97. 51

Africville was located at the end of Campbell Road on the shores of the

Bedford Basin. It was first known as the “Campbell Road Settlement”.

Eventually the “Africville” moniker won the day. The location was favored by the blacks who settled there because the land was cheap and in close proximity to city employment. According to city records, William Brown and William Arnold, descendants of black refugees from the War of 1812, bought the first two lots that led to the establishment of Africville in 1848. By 1851, eight families were living in Africville. By the time of its demolition, it has been reported that nearly

400 people—only a few of them white-- lived there.76

The chronological histories of Africville that can be found on the Internet and in Jennifer J. Nelson’s book Razing Africville: A Geography of Racism show that in 1849, the Reverend Richard Preston (1790-1861), who had established numerous African Baptist churches throughout Nova Scotia, including Cornwallis

Street Baptist Church (formerly the “African Baptist Chapel” 1832), established a

Baptist church in Africville which eventually became known as the Seaview

African United Baptist Church.77 With the establishment of a church, Africville became a true community. By the 1870s new homes, a school, and two stores were built. The population continued to grow. By the early 1900s Africville’s population had grown into the hundreds. Employment was high as it was in all of

76 History of racial victimization from website http://www.dacosta400.ca/cavalcade/africville.shtml (accessed October 13, 2011).

77 Jennifer J. Nelson, Razing Africville: A Geography of Racism (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2008),12.

Halifax because of World War I. Some of the work in which Africvilleans were engaged is described in this passage:

Africvilleans worked as porters, labourers, dockworkers, and factory workers in the surrounding factories. Women worked as domestic servants, seamstresses, and factory workers in industries such as Moir’s chocolate factory. Other occupations included farming, managing piggeries, raising chickens, and bootlegging. Several Africvilleans, like many Nova Scotians, were involved in rum- running during American prohibition. George Dixon, the champion boxer who held three titles, was born in Africville; Portia White, the opera singer, taught there; famous black personalities, such as Joe Louis, Louie Armstrong, and Duke Ellington visited. During World War II there were even several stories about a German spy renting a room in Africville to monitor the convoys in the Bedford Basin.78

Besides manufacturing and industrial ventures, retail businesses found their home along Barrington and Gottingen Streets. In the early to mid twentieth century, Gottingen Street was the shopping destination of most Haligonians. The street reverberated with the pulse of merchants and shoppers. The commercial district of Gottingen Street in 1950 is described by this excerpt from a thesis on urban renewal:

The inventory includes Retail, Professional Services, Social/Community Services, Restaurants, Entertainment, and Financial Institutions; and the sheer number of 130 retail/commercial services within a span of four blocks reflects the amount of activity that the street once enjoyed. Major retailers such as Kline's clothing and shoe stores, the Metropolitan store, the New York Dress shop and Glube's were all major retailers for the neighbourhood and the city. "It was once a thriving avenue of hustle and bustle." stated one former business owner. Thousands

78History of racial victimization from website http://www.dacosta400.ca/cavalcade/africville.shtml (accessed October 13, 2011)..

of Haligonians patronised Gottingen Street, spending their hard- earned dollars on merchandise that met most budgets. With ten different restaurants and cafés to choose from, such as the popular Fountain Tea Room, movie goers at the venerable Casino and Vogue Theatres were surely not disappointed. Adding to the diverse milieu was the large concentration of professional services available on Gottingen Street. Physicians, dentists, tailors, and barristers all graced the commercial district (a combined total of 19 in 1950).79

Some of the other former businesses along Gottingen Street included

Heinish’s Clothing Store, Rubins Men’s and Boy’s Wear, Reitmans Women’s

Wear, Discount Shoeland, and Argyle TV. My older congregants today still remember these stores and report that in the 1950s and 60s there would be lineups at these stores. Commerce was booming. In one account a lady recalls how she would get all dressed up to go to town to shop on Gottingen Street.

Africville and Its End

It is important to note that in the mid 1900s North American cities had begun to look at the concept of urban renewal. Canada soon followed the United

States. By 1947, the population of Halifax had exploded to over ninety-nine thousand, a 40% increase within six years. Parker writes, “A peacetime population of sixty-nine thousand swelled to a hundred thousand as military

79 Bruktawit B. Melles, “The Relationship Between Policy, Planning and Neighbourhood Change: The Case of the Gottingen Street Neighbourhood 1950-2000” (Master thesis, Halifax: Dalhousie University, 2003), 13.

forces vied with civilians for overtaxed space and services. Accommodation was in short supply; complete strangers shared double beds in boarding houses, while many waited three days for a hotel room.”80 The increased population lived in pre-fabricated tenement-type housing erected cheaply and quickly to meet the need. With signs of deterioration, these neighborhoods began to be viewed as “slums” by outsiders. This made the city’s downtown core and near north end candidates for the city’s slum clearance program.81

Consider that Africville was a black community –- an urban village that was self-contained within city limits, but due to racial discrimination, residents did not enjoy use of city services. No water, sewage, paved roads, snow removal, or police services were provided to the community of Africville despite requests from its residents. The disregard of Africville and its residents can be seen in the numerous abuses inflicted upon the community. From the 1920s onward,

Africville was increasingly encroached upon. Industries and institutions no one else wanted were set up surrounding Africville -- a prison, a bone meal plant, night soil pits from the railway, a slaughterhouse, a glue factory, a paint factory, and a tuberculosis hospital. In the 1950s the city dump and incinerator were moved next to Africville. Once a beautiful community, Africville began to be seen by many Halifax residents –-blacks well as whites -- as a slum neighborhood, a shanty town, and a social embarrassment.

80 Parker, 236.

81 Melles, 21.

In 1956, Gordon Stephenson, a professor from the University of Toronto, was engaged by the city of Halifax, with support from the province and Canada

Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), to identify which areas of the city required development or redevelopment, what the scheme should be to relocate those living in the pinpointed areas and the new use for the land. Stephenson’s

1957 report contained schemes for the “problem” areas / communities in the city and served as the catalyst for the city’s destruction of Africville, the building of

Scotia and Uniacke Square and the subsequent blight of the once vibrant

Gottingen Street business district.

Stephenson’s recommendations that led to the city’s aforementioned actions toward urban renewal had a devastating effect on the North End of

Halifax which, one could argue, has yet to be overcome. Several converging factors led to the North End’s demise. Gottingen Street, which once thrived economically, began to lose businesses as customers flocked to the newly built

Scotia Square, a complex of stores, offices and apartment buildings that was built just a couple of blocks from Gottingen Street. It was begun in 1967 and completed a few years later. The mall offered easy parking and was a bright, shiny, new modern-looking place to shop. Gottingen Street was reconfigured from the North End destination it had been to a traffic corridor redesigned to move cars rapidly from across the harbor in Dartmouth, over the A. Murray

MacKay Bridge—one foot of which was planted where Africville had been located—to downtown and back. To achieve this, parking was banned on

Gottingen Street. Residential buildings behind and to the east of Gottingen were 56

bulldozed, and the 660 people who had lived there were relocated, to create off- street parking lots.82

The municipal government’s expropriation of land in Africville and forced relocation of its residents began in 1960 and took ten long painful years to complete.83 In 1968 the proud and long-standing Seaview United Baptist Church was demolished at night by city workers. In 1970 Aaron “Pa” Carvery, who had been born in Africville, at age 72 was the last resident to leave.

Africville was treated like a miniature African colony under white colonial rule. As the African side of the story could only be properly told after colonial rule had come to an end, so the Africville side of the story can now be recorded, analysed and told free of fear, favour or self-interest.”84

Many former Africville residents were moved into a new 250-unit public housing project called Uniacke Square, which opened in 1966. Moving the black community called Africville into a housing unit named for Irish immigrants who had generationally held various legal and political positions in Canada, including the first Premier of Nova Scotia, the Honourable James B. Uniacke, has come to be perceived by many as more evidence of the city’s insensitivity toward its non- white citizens.

82 Silver, 13

83 For the detailed Africville story, see Jennifer J. Nelson, Razing Africville: A Geography of Racism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008).

84 Pachai,159.

Part of the government’s “slum” clearance included razing a portion of the downtown core north of City Hall, below Citadel Hill. Whole city blocks that included Jacob, Hurd, and Buckingham Streets were demolished. The nearly

1600 people inhabiting those blocks were moved in 1962 to a 360-unit public housing complex called Mulgrave Park. These moves put an entirely different face on the North End, as people living at and below the poverty level were ghettoized into forced communities.

In 1977 Kline’s Ltd. was the last major retailer to leave Gottingen Street.

Kline’s had been a presence on Gottingen Street for 44 years! Gottingen Street had once been home to three theatres: Empire, Vogue, and Capitol. They are all gone now, the last one closed in the early 1970s. Between 1961 and 1976, the population of the North End declined forty-two percent. Sobey’s, Gottingen

Street’s only major grocery store, was opened in 1965 and closed its doors in

1987. The street enjoyed a short-lived resurgence in the 1980s when artists and artistic groups moved into the North End specifically with the aim of revitalizing the area. Galleries were set up in vacant buildings and for a time, the stigma of the area was lifted. Students from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design moved into the area because of cheap rents and the area became a trendy place to live. But this was not enough to recover the street’s vibrancy.

One can deduce that the shifting of people and whole communities created a fair amount of unrest and uncertainty among people that perhaps added to the erosion of the customer base for the merchants of Gottingen Street.

Add to these urban renewal upheavals, the stigma associated with being the locale of public housing, the loss of community with a shared set of values and a moral code that governed its young, the crowding together of people living at the poverty level and the result is exactly what the relocation was supposed to deter—a breeding ground for crime and violence.85

There are several major incidents that history identifies as aiding the decline of the Gottingen Street area besides its becoming the housing location for the poor. The first is the 1981 vandalism that some have labeled a “riot”.

Halifax police went on strike for better wages. The first two days of the strike, windows were smashed of some Gottingen Street businesses. This led to shop owners boarding the windows up. The area was then dubbed “Plywood Alley”.

The strike lasted 56 days, the vandalism two, but some shops never recovered and left the area for good. With many of the businesses boarded up for good, the street was no longer the thriving, bustling commercial venue it had been. It became a prime target for illicit activity. In her 2003 study of North End Halifax,

British Columbia Housing Operations Manager, Bruktawit Melles, reports that drug dealers began trafficking on the street and were actually recorded on the local news claiming Gottingen Street as their territory.86

85Stephen Kimber, “Inside the Square”, The Coast (March 2007).

86 Melles, 62.

Three murders between 1988-89 in the near north end cemented the area’s reputation as violent and unsafe. An area that had struggled with its self- image since the Uniacke Square project was first populated lost whatever remnant of a decent reputation it had. It was now dubbed as a poor, undesirable area and certainly not an area in which to do business. Gottingen Street’s major retailers, the Metropolitan Store (dubbed the “Met” by locals); the New York

Dress Shop, Glube’s Furniture, and the Casino Theatre all closed their doors between 1991 and 1994. The Royal Bank of Canada which had opened its

Gottingen branch in 1908, was the last bank left on Gottingen Street. It closed in

1996, leaving the area with no neighborhood bank. The Fountain Restaurant, a landmark and mainstay, built in 1918, was gutted in April 1999. It had been thought that the 1993 completion of the new federal building located at

Cornwallis and Gottingen would encourage renewed interest in the area and businesses would again gravitate there, but it had no significant impact on the area’s development. The Gottingen Street area was officially in a state of urban blight.

In the Wake of Africville: Violence

Another indicator of the state of an area is the replacement of commercial enterprises by social agencies. Such was the case of the Gottingen Street area.

By the year 2000, there were 19 social agencies on Gottingen Street, compared to four in 1970. Therefore, the area began to be populated or frequented by those needing to access such services. Increasing social service providers and

decreasing commercial activity results in decreased economic development.

Figures 1.1 & 1.2 show this correlation in ten year increments. Melles states,

There are five public housing developments within the boundaries of the Gottingen Street neighbourhood, and they are located within a six-block radius of one another. They are: Uniacke Square, Ahern Manor, Creighton Street public housing, Sunrise Manor, and Gordon B. Isnor Manor. Not including the Creighton Street development, there are 677 units of public housing. Without supporting evidence, it is conceivably the densest concentration of low income housing in Halifax. In the 1980’s Gottingen Street's commercial district showed signs of continued decline, with only remnants of its diversity and commercial vitality present. Many businesses left along with many people who could afford to live elsewhere, therefore the poorest people comprised most of the neighbourhood. 87

Statistics for the period 1950-2000 for the Gottingen Street area show its steady decline. In 1950 there were 130 retail / commercial services in the four block span of Gottingen Street that comprised the commercial district. By 2000 that number had decreased to a mere 38. Vacant buildings and lots along that same strip went from 3 in 1950 to 41 in 2000. The population in the area also

87 Melles, 67.

decreased as people left the North End in record numbers to head for the suburbs. Records show that in 1951 the population of the Gottingen neighborhood went from nearly 12,000 down to just under 4500 in 1996 with a bit of an increase to just below 5000 in 2001. According to the 2006 census, it has dipped again to just under 4700. The Gottingen neighborhood decreased from a nearly 9% share of Halifax’s overall population in 1951 to a 1.3% share in 2001, with 4.1 average persons per household in 1951, 2.6 in 2001, and 1.8 in 2006.88

In housing terms, the proportion of those renting grew to just under 90 percent, compared to Halifax as a whole at less than 40 percent. That remains fairly close to the 2006 report of 86% renters. The proportion of those employed dropped sharply, from approximately two-thirds in 1951 to less than half in

2001—and this is reflected in the relative drop in average household income, from 60 percent of that in Halifax as a whole in 1971 to just 48 percent of Halifax as a whole in 2001, and in the growth in the proportion of those in Gottingen with incomes below the Statistics Canada Low-Income Cut Off, from 58 percent in

1981 to 65 percent, or almost two-thirds, in 1996, with a subsequent drop to 59

88 This data is drawn from the thesis work by Bruktawit B. Melles, “The Relationship Between Policy, Planning and Neighbourhood Change: The Case of the Gottingen Street Neighbourhood 1950-2000” (Master thesis, Halifax: Dalhousie University, 2003). Melles conducted extensive research of the Gottingen Street area using a case study approach for her longitudinal study. Her work references secondary data gathered from federal census, public archives, and pertinent policy and planning documentation. Figures 1.1 & 1.2 are used here by permission to show the shift on Gottingen Street as commercial enterprise moves out and is replaced by social agencies. The area then becomes a thoroughfare for the clients of social assistance rather than the customers of commercial establishments.

percent in 2001.89 (See Table 1) With recent interest in the area, this former main boulevard in North End Halifax has been slowly re-awakening. One may draw this conclusion from the 2006 census statistics which reflect a rise in employment to 61% with the Low-Income Cut Off at decreased to 46%. Some of these positive changes could also be attributed to what has been seen as gentrification of the North End, especially the neighborhood around Gottingen

Street. Vacant and rundown properties are being bought, developed, and resold to a new middle class that is slowly infiltrating the area. What has not yet been effectively stopped is the violence. The North End continues to be regarded as unsafe by the majority of the public.

Table 1: Demographic Indictaors of Study Area

Population 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 1996 2001 2006 Gottingen 11,939 13,070 7584 5194 5580 4494 4943 4699 Halifax 133,931 183,946 222,637 277,727 320,501 332,518 359,190 372,858 Gottingen % of Halifax 8.90% 7.10% 3.40% 1.90% 1.70% 1.40% 1.30% 1.30% Gottingen persons/ household 4.1 4.3 3.7 2.3 2.1 1.9 2.6 1.8 Gottingen % Employed 68% 75% 58% 56% 60% 51% 46% 61% % Tenant-occupied Housing Gottingen 78% 76% 83% 87% 87% 87% 89.50% 86% Halifax 45% 45% 50% 44% 42% 40% 38.20% 36% % Low Income Gottingen n/a n/a n/a 58% 55% 65% 59.30% 45.60% Halifax n/a n/a n/a 35% 34% 40% 36.50% 14.30%

Sources: 1951-2001 (Melles, 2003) 2006 (Statistics Canada)

89 Silver, 11-12.

Stephen Kimber, the Rogers Communications Professor in Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax wrote an article in March 2007 for The

Coast, a Halifax weekly news publication on the perception and reality of Uniacke

Square, located in North End Halifax. In “inside the Square”, Kimber writes:

When it opened on May 7, 1966, the official dream was that Uniacke Square—a 250-unit public housing project, surrounded by a new library, a new recreation centre, a new school and a new post office—would mark the local dawning of the new age of enlightened urban renewal that had already swept through much of the rest of North America…But even before the end of the '60s— less than three years, in fact, after Uniacke Square opened its doors—a federal task force concluded such large-scale public housing projects only created "ghettos of the poor." Though that report effectively ended future experiments and discredited the theory massive public housing complexes represented either sound urban planning or healthy social policy, many of the original projects, including Uniacke Square, are still around 40 years later. Far from being transitional housing for families on the highway to suburbia, they've become traps for low-income people who can't afford to move on, even if they want to. And putting so many poor people together in one place helped turn the projects into breeding grounds for exactly the kinds of problems they were supposed to alleviate: poverty, family breakdown, high dropout rates, drugs, crime.... Today, two-thirds of the residents of the Square are women, and two-thirds are under 25. Unemployment nudges 60 percent.90

Because Halifax is a port city, it is no stranger to crime, as is true with most port cities. The first settlers were just off the boats when criminal activity began. Pickpockets, prostitutes, thieves, and con artists plied their trades as the new settlement struggled for survival. The first murder took place on the very

90 Stephen Kimber, “Inside the Square”, The Coast (March 2007).

ship, the Beaufort, which was being used to house the governing officials. As the settlement grew so did the number of taverns, houses of prostitution, and a significant population of criminal types. The business of crime prospered with assaults, robberies, gambling, bootlegging, arson, and murder. Clashes between the military and civilians were common. Juvenile crime in an earlier day was also common. The mayor of Halifax, Philip Carteret Hill, in his 1861-62 report complained about the number of young trouble-makers. He noted the juveniles of both sexes were “constantly brought before the Police Court, charged with thefts and similar offences.” He also claimed that the number of young offenders was

“far greater than would be imagined.” 91

World events influenced the fluctuating level of crime in Halifax. The

Seven Years’ War that started in 1755, the American Revolution., World War I, and World War II all brought hordes of troops through Halifax and contributed to rowdiness, drunkenness, and conflicts between the military and civilian population. Certain types of crime also increased. During the two world wars, for example, the docks in Halifax had a major problem with theft. One of the more famous blemishes on the city’s reputation was the V.E. day riots. Mobs took over the streets of Halifax and shop windows were smashed, stores looted, cars destroyed, liquor stores and breweries cleaned out. The post war era brought with it prosperity and a more liberal society. It also witnessed an increase in both adult and juvenile crime as the problem escalated through the 1970s, 80s, and

91 Donald Clairmont, “Violence and Public Safety in the HRM: A Report to the Mayor as a Result of the Roundtable” (Halifax: 2008), 8.

90s. Halifax experienced a substantial drug problem along with more criminal gangs. Illegal drugs, in turn, contributed to more break-ins, thefts, and assaults.

So while violence is not new to the city, the nature of the violence has changed.

In response to the changing nature of violence in the HRM, in November

2006, Mayor Peter Kelly initiated the Mayor’s Roundtable on Violence and Public

Safety in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) in response to growing concerns that violent crime in HRM was escalating. In April 2008, Dr. Don Clairmont,

Director, Atlantic Institute of Criminology, presented Mayor Kelly with a report that provided a wealth of practical information and over 60 insightful recommendations for action.

The fact sheet on reported crime in HRM in 2005 prepared for the

Minister’s Task Force in 2006-2007 (Department of Justice Crime Fact Sheet

2006) points out that HRM had a crime rate, per 100,000, well above the Nova

Scotian average, 9,389 to 8,345, respectively. This figure would be nearly 20% greater if HRM is excluded from the latter calculation. It had higher levels of both violent and property crime (47% and 55% of the Nova Scotian totals respectively). Fully 84% of the robberies – and virtually all of the swarmings – occurred in HRM, as well as 95% of the prostitution offences and 62% of all motor vehicle thefts. However, the overall rate of youth crime in 2005 was less than the provincial average, though the rate of violent crimes by youth was higher in HRM, especially robberies. A recent release by the Canadian Centre for

Justice Statistics (CCJS) (The Chronicle Herald, 21 April 2008) reported that

Halifax had the highest rate of gun-related robberies in Canada in 2006, adding that “the high rate in Nova Scotia is driven by the numbers for Halifax”.92

The most current statistics on violence in the urban core are compiled in

Table 2, issued by the HRM Public Safety Office in December 2011. (See Table

2) The year 2011 reported a record number of murders in the Halifax Regional

Municipality, a region with slightly more than 400,000 people. There were 19 homicides and 75 shootings. By July 2012, there were 39 shooting episodes in

Halifax. Halifax is ranked second in the nation for homicide per capita.93

Clairmont posits that offending frequently occurs in an historical and societal context of victimization. For example, Statistics Canada (The Daily, 20

February 2008) released the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS) findings showing that among those aged 15 or more, Canadian-born visible minorities’ rates of violent victimization are three times higher than visible minorities born abroad and twice as much as non-visible minorities in Canada; the rates were

211 per 1000 versus 69 and 107 respectively. Clairmont notes that the

Canadian-born visible minorities are younger, single, lower income and engaged

92 Clairmont,10.

93 Michael Lightstone and Dan Arsenault, “Halifax, we have a violent crime problem”. Chronicle Herald, July 24, 2012, Metro section.

in more evening activities but, even so, the differences according to Statistics

Canada remain very significant.94

After the murders in 1988-1989, the neighborhood response was to form a citizen’s committee. “Concerned Citizens Against Drugs” was determined to take back the streets from the drug traffickers that were getting bolder as they pedaled their wares on Gottingen Street. A meeting was held in the North Branch Library that was attended by over 350 concerned citizens. It resulted in the mayor agreeing to open a community policing office that included foot patrol officers.

The community residents felt empowered and the chief of police reported that once the office was being manned 24/7, major crime had decreased as more citizens were engaged in reporting any strange or unusual occurrences. A permanent citizen’s committee formed and continues to exist as the Uniacke

Square Tenant’s Association.

In spite of these efforts, crime and violence continues in the North End.

Many persons in Uniacke Square were caught in a cycle of poverty from the start, as the consequence not only of their being forcibly removed from Africville, but also being offered few supports in their new housing at Uniacke Square. This lack of social supports—“they didn’t provide nothing else but the shelter”, said one long-time resident—has been typical of such urban relocation schemes in twentieth century North America. When those from Africville arrived at Uniacke

94 Clairmont,18.

Square, not only was there little by way of social supports, they also faced a wall of racism and discrimination.95

Halifax has experienced racial tension since it was founded. Though blacks came to Canada seeking freedom from the oppression experienced in the

United States, no relief was found. Certain parts of the city and certain establishments were not open to blacks. These prohibitions were openly acknowledged. Silver captures some of the sentiments of the day in his work:

’It is only in certain parts of North End Halifax, and not elsewhere in Halifax with the exception of Africville, that negro families can find housing accommodation’ . Some residents in a neighbourhood north of Uniacke Square had already said ‘we don’t want Africville people here’. One early resident said that in the 1960s it was common for African-Nova Scotians to be told by barbers and restaurant staff, ‘we don’t cut niggers’ hair’ and ‘we don’t serve niggers here’, and he described the Halifax police force at that time as ‘the most racist police force in Canada’. 96

Remarkably, schools were not desegregated until 1955, only a decade before Uniacke Square was opened in 1966. African-Nova Scotians living in the

North End were effectively denied entry into the various industrial occupations associated with the neighboring Halifax ship and dock yards and other industries.

Because of this systemic and institutionalized racism, young black men have come simply to assume (and accept) that they will not get jobs in these places

95 Silver, 21.

96 Silver, 21.

In this context of spatially concentrated racialized poverty, it is perhaps not surprising that violence and drugs and street sexual exploitation exist.

Summary

Halifax was founded in 1749 and built as a garrison town. After the war years it redefined itself as a port city for international trade and military refurbishment. Railways brought industry and the city expanded its boundaries such that distinct areas called the North and South Ends emerged. The South

End became the district where the more affluent city-dwellers made their homes, while the North End was the city’s major commercial district, teeming with patrons and the activity of thriving commerce.

Because of its proximity to downtown and the numerous wharves that sprang up along Halifax’s waterfront, The North End also became the housing choice for the working class. The influx of workers demanded affordable housing that caused previously built gentry homes to be divided into flats and the construction of new homes to be both fast and cheap hence, pre-fabricated structures were quickly erected.

Concurrently, some areas were settled by the economically poorer class building their own housing. As these populations grew, the Campbell Road settlement, later called Africville because it was comprised mostly of blacks, and the settlement at the foot of Citadel Hill on what was Jacob Street, came to be

regarded as “slums”. City officials and upper class residents wanted the slums removed. By the mid-twentieth century, cities in the United States had begun urban renewal projects. Canada followed suit with its city of Halifax commissioning a study of its own. The Stephenson Report of 1957 pinpointed

Africville and the settlement on Jacob for “re-development”.

The residents of those areas were relocated and the land expropriated and bull-dozed for the city’s use. The 1600 residents who had been living in the downtown settlement were moved in 1962 to Mulgrave Park, a 360-unit public housing complex located in the near North End. The land from which they were moved was used to build a new commercial / residential complex called Scotia

Square, just a few blocks from Gottingen Street. Africville, then about 400 residents, tried unsuccessfully to protest its evacuation. The residents had established a community with a school, two stores, and a church. Most of those residents, were moved into a 250-unit public housing development called

Uniacke Square, located on Gottingen Street. Uniacke Square opened in 1966.

Under protest, the last resident of Africville did not leave until 1970, the same year that the A. Murray MacKay Bridge opened, one foot of which sits on the edge of Africville. The land remains vacant to this day.

Scotia Square thrived for a time as retailers and professional services opened in modern facilities, drawing business away from Gottingen Street—a by- product of the urban renewal scheme that seemingly had not been considered.

The shift in patronage along with the violence that began to erupt in the

Gottingen Street area caused long-standing commercial institutions to close their doors. The four-block commercial district on Gottingen went from 130 businesses in 1950 to 38 by the year 2000.

Vacant buildings and land became a haven for drug traffickers and prostitution. Consequently, the North End went from a once desirable locale in the city to the place most Haligonians (residents of Halifax) came to regard as seedy and dangerous. North End Halifax provides the researcher with an excellent field of study for ministry to a violent neighborhood. In chapter 4, we turn to the actual case study drawn from this context.

CHAPTER 4

CASE METHOD AND CASE

The Case Method

This project now employs ethnography as Hammersley and Atkinson define it—the collection of data through researcher participation, “overtly and covertly, in people’s daily lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, and / or asking questions through informal and formal interviews, collecting documents and artefacts” 97—gathering whatever data are available that will shed light on the focus of inquiry.

Ethnography as found within social research has a complex history that makes it difficult to define. It has been influenced “by a range of theoretical ideas: anthropological and sociological functionalism, philosophical pragmatism and symbolic interactionism, Marxism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, structuralism, feminism, constructionism, post-structuralism, and post- modernism.” Therefore, ethnography is best defined by what ethnographers actually do.98

The ethnographical methodology for this work includes the researcher’s own observations of people in their everyday contexts, focusing on one case in a single setting as a microcosm of the larger problem of urban violence.

97 Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography: Principles in Practice. 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2007), 2-3.

98 Ibid.

Information on the case and its primary subject was gathered from a range of secondary sources such as newspaper articles, electronic media reports, and other published accounts of pertinent information. Reliance is placed on researcher observation, especially in instances of public assemblies directly related to the case subject.

Hammersley and Atkinson classify this as “unstructured” data collection.

The analysis of these data results in verbal descriptions, explanations, and theories based on the interpretation of meaning, functions, and consequences of human actions and institutional practices. 99

The data gathered are being presented in case form. The case is outlined as a descriptive study with the researcher as observer. The case was chosen because of its uniqueness as the subject has been both a perpetrator and victim of violence in the inner city. In keeping with ethnographic research method, responses to the violent acts, to those involved, and the general circumstance of violence in the community are shared as gathered from non-confidential conversations and public interactions with various family members and members of community, and through published accounts and statements in local media.

Because the researcher is the local pastor and is sometimes privy to special information in that role, careful attention has been given not to divulge any

99 This represents a summary of the features of the ethnographical methodology described by Hammersley and Atkinson. They explain that ethnographical methodology uses an open-end approach to research with the aim of studying the lives of people in their natural setting, being sensitive to and attempting to blend into the setting. Hence, ethnographical methodology has as part of its foundation what some in qualitative research call “naturalism”. Hammersley and Atkinson posit that in terms of social research, ethnographical methodology goes beyond naturalism and may lead to more authentic data collection because of its reflexivity.

information that has not been made public. Conclusions and ministry strategies are drawn from the researcher’s interpretation of the gathered data.

This murder is a public case. The investigation is ongoing. Therefore, an official police record of the murder is not available.

The Case

Just after midnight on 3 May 2008 shots rang out in Uniacke Square, a public housing complex in North Central Halifax. Uniacke Square is part of the researcher’s parish, two short blocks from the church to which many of “the

Square’s” residents belong. A young man lay wounded on the sidewalk just 50 meters from the community police office.100 He had been shot five times at close range as he was walking to meet his brother.

In the years 2000-2012, thirty-one African Nova Scotians were murdered.

Twenty-two of them were killed in the Halifax Regional Municipality.101 According to Statistics Canada, there were twelve homicides in Nova Scotia in 2008.102

Three of those killed were African Nova Scotians, two in the HRM. One of them was a 21-year-old named Jaumar Carvery.

Jaumar grew up in North Central Halifax. The oldest brother of three full

100Major Unsolved Crime Report from website http://www.halifax.ca/police/UnsolvedMurders/info/CarveryJaumar.html (accessed December 15, 2011).

101 List of homicides compiled in January 2013 by Chronicle Herald reporter Sherri Borden Colley. See Appendix.

102 Statistics Canada website http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum- som/l01/cst01/legal12a-eng.htm (accessed December 15, 2011).

siblings, he was raised in the church, attended Sunday school and sang in the children’s choir. At the time of his death, he was also the father of two daughters, one a toddler.

Jaumar had a difficult start in life being born into what could be considered a dysfunctional family dynamic. His mother was twenty-one years of age when

Jaumar was born. She had a complex relationship with Jaumar’s father. They never married, but did cohabitate for a time. Jaumar’s mother was also a crack cocaine addict.103

As a child, Jaumar suffered with a speech impediment. He stuttered.

The atmosphere in his home may have been a contributing cause to his stuttering. Environments that are overly stressful have been known to cause children to have disfluency in speech, especially as speech patterns are developing in the early years. It then becomes a cyclical affliction. Stuttering may cause a person to lose confidence and self-esteem. It may also cause high anxiety, which can lead to more severe stuttering.104 It is interesting to note that as Jaumar began to excel in basketball, he grew out of the stuttering. Physical activity has been proven to reduce stress and anxiety. Jaumar was not a good student in school. It is quite likely that Jaumar’s poor scholastic performance was a result of low self-esteem developed in his period of stuttering.

103 Public speech made in several church gatherings between 2009 and 2011.

104 Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders. Retrieved at http://www.minddisorders.com/Py- Z/Stuttering.html (accessed on November 6, 2011)

Lack of confidence and low self-esteem can manifest on opposite ends of the same continuum of human behavior, either as timidity on one end or as false bravado on the other. Jaumar seems to have moved between the two. The researcher’s experience in interaction with the subject Jaumar was the young man on the more timid end of the continuum. However, Jaumar could be brash under certain circumstances. The brashness is in keeping with the code of the street as young men fight for street “cred” (credibility). Their public persona has to be that of someone who cannot be disrespected, embarrassed or “punked”.

Respect is essential for survival in the streets.105

Whether it was because of his stutter, his timidity, an actual lower academic capability, or a combination, Jaumar was put in special needs classes.

Special needs classes have consistently produced severely under-educated graduates. This has been a major struggle in the education of blacks in Nova

Scotia. Too often, black children that learn differently or exhibit any behavior that is not seen as fitting the education system’s model of “normal” are labeled and streamed into less academic classes, creating race and class segregation in schools. Black Learners Advisory Committee (BLAC) researchers encountered widespread condemnation of the public education system as “biased, insensitive, and racist”, labeling large numbers of black students as slow learners or having behavior problems. Black students are not the only students streamed into special needs classes, but BLAC researchers found that black students were

105 Elijah Anderson, Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), 81-84.

disproportionately streamed into less academically rigorous or vocational classes. This practice had not been challenged by the parents of these students because in many cases, they may not have understood the school system or the implications of streaming. 106

As he got older, Jaumar experienced greater and greater difficulty in school. Jaumar was applauded by coaches and community as a gifted athlete who always seemed to be walking the line between two worlds.107 Basketball almost seemed to be a life line to him. Without it, he would probably have been lost even deeper in the drug sub-culture. 108

The black community experiences the loss of its youth into that subculture in increasing numbers as the youth feel the pressure of a consumerist society. “In a world where White youth seem to have it all…it is not surprising that Black youth, for whom the good life is but a pipedream, are drawn into the subculture of drugs and gangs which offers them ready access to power, economic means, and respect.”109

A similar sentiment was shared in a roundtable discussion with four young men who had all been to juvenile jail for petty crimes. They lamented that there are not enough “good” options available to them. They get into trouble because

106 Black Learners Advisory Committee. “BLAC Report on Education: Redressing Inequity—Empowering Black Learners”, (Nova Scotia, 1994), 35, 43.

107 Robyn Young, “Shooting victim 'wanted to be a better person'”. Metro News, May 5, 2008. Note: Subject’s name is misspelled as “Jumar” in the article.

108 Sentiments expressed at the wake for Jaumar Carvery on 8 May 2008 at the Community YMCA, Gottingen Street, Halifax, NS.

109 James, et al., 129.

there is “nothing to do”. There are not enough recreational / community programs and activities to keep them occupied. One twenty-something young man recalled how, as a child, he played neighborhood ball games, frequented the local park, went on community-sponsored excursions, such as to museums, plays, and professional sports games, and attended community events that were specifically designed with a child component included. However, on a community level, those things no longer seem to be available for his young son.

Having a difficult time in school caused him and the others in the discussion to

“opt-out” of school when they reached age sixteen. When asked why they saw school as an “option”, they shrugged and said, “That’s just how it is here. When you get old enough you don’t have to go no more” They wished they had graduated, but “back then” school wasn’t “for them”. 110 The angst in the tone of these young men is described in Race & Well-Being:

…despair, hopelessness, powerlessness, and alienation are particularly acute among some segments of Black male youth who feel devalued by mainstream society, by the education system, by the legal system, and sometimes, even by their own communities and families. According to the reports, instead of looking to a bright future, many Black youth, especially males, face a bleak future.111

By the time he reached grade eleven, the streets seem to have gotten a firm grip on Jaumar. He and his girlfriend had a baby. Having a poor education

110 The researcher facilitated a small group discussion with several youth and community leaders on the issue of crime prevention at the Ceasefire Chicago Knowledge Exchange Days, hosted by the Ministry of Justice, Black Cultural Centre, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. May 17, 2012.

111 Carl James, David Este, et al., Race & Well-Being: The Lives, Hopes, and Activism of African Canadians, (Halifax; Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2010), 129.

and being only functionally literate, Jaumar must have seen his financial options as severely limited. His own mother was finally free from drugs, but living on assistance. His father had a new family with another woman, so was not as present in his life as before. His case is a textbook example of Merton’s innovation theory.112 Legitimate means of financial support were not available to

Jaumar or were rejected by him as being inadequate to his perceived material needs and /or desires. Jaumar’s circumstances led an otherwise likeable young man into the drug trade.

The drug culture has become such a norm in the community amongst these young black males that it is seen as a viable economic alternative, despite its inherent risks. If you ask any of the residents in Uniacke Square whether drug dealing is acceptable, the answer will be no, but drug dealing is seen and understood as a “normal”113 activity in a neighborhood that offers few other options for young men who need employment. The risks associated with the activity are deemed “acceptable” risks. If one deals drugs, then one must be ready to accept the possible consequences of being caught. “You shouldn’t be out here if you not gonna “man up” and take your charges. If I get caught, I’m willin’ to do my time.”114

112 Discussed in chapter 2, footnotes 30 & 49. For further details see Merton’s work, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York, NY: Free Press, 1968).

113 “Normal” in the sense that it is not unusual. It is not an anomaly. Unfortunately, it is becoming more of an anomaly to find a young man between the ages of 15-30 who is not touched in some way by the drug trade. This can be that he uses drugs, lives or keeps company with people who use drugs, or sees drug trafficking in the streets.

114 On the street conversation with a drug dealer (December 18, 2012).

The risks associated with the trade seem to be an acceptable variable

(whether diligently understood or miscalculated) in the engagement of young men such as Jaumar, as noted in this study of gang finances:

…drug selling is an extremely dangerous activity…Given the relatively low economic returns to drug selling…the implied willingness to accept risk on the part of the participants is orders of magnitude higher than is typically observed in value of life calculations. This suggests either that gang members have very unusual preferences, that the ex post realization of death rates was very different than the ex ante expectation, systematic miscalculation of risk, or the presence of important noneconomic considerations.115

Even in the conversation referenced above, the young man only referred to the possibility of getting caught. He never addressed the possibility of getting killed.

It seems that most view themselves as highly unlikely victims of a violent trade.

A Casualty of War

This case was chosen because the subject was both a perpetrator and victim of violence. Jaumar as perpetrator was one who perpetuated the cycle of violence by being engaged in a trade that often leads to violence. His choice to sell drugs belied the fact that he had been raised in the church. The tension and disparity between what Jaumar learned in church, what he was taught at home, and what he encountered in the neighborhood probably played a major role in

115Steven D. Levitt and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, “An Economic Analysis Of A Drug- Selling Gang’s Finances”. Quarterly Journal of Economics, (August 2000): 758.

the mindset of this young man as he tried to navigate life in the streets and to make decisions that would affect the rest of his life 116

Jaumar seems to have been able to separate his identity as a drug dealing “thug” and a typical, even likeable, neighborhood familiar. The neighborhood children flocked to him. He was friendly and engaging to them, always encouraging them to stay in school and to do well.117 He would not sell drugs to children. Nevertheless, he did great damage to the neighborhood, perhaps even unbeknownst to him. Very seldom do these “corner” soldiers see beyond the immediate transaction in which they are engaged.118 As a person that children looked up to, Jaumar set a poor example. Children tend to emulate what they see, regardless of what you are teaching. He told them one thing but he did another. He was also a contradiction in that Jaumar urged his own mother to get off drugs, but then enabled other users by selling to them.

Violence and drugs punctuated this young man’s life. Not only was he known to deal drugs on nearby Brunswick Street, but in November 2006, Jaumar was convicted of uttering death threats against a Halifax police officer. At the time of his death, he was facing charges of possessing a prohibited weapon - a

116 Bruce Fawcett and Rob Nylen, Effective Youth Ministry (Saint John, NB: Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches, 2003), 211.

117 Sentiments expressed at the wake for Jaumar Carvery on 8 May 2008 at the Community YMCA, Gottingen Street, Halifax, NS.

118 Michael C. Chettleburgh, Young Thugs: Inside the Dangerous World of Canadian Street Gangs (Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd., 2007), 43-44. In this acclaimed work, Chettleburgh, one of Canada’s foremost authorities on street gangs, paints a vivid picture of the mindset and motivation of gang members and youth inducted into the drug and violence subculture in Canadian cities.

switchblade - and marijuana. In July 2007, police suspected Jaumar may have been the shooter in an attempted murder in an Agricola Street apartment. He was later cleared of that charge. 119

Neighborhood residents did not consider Jaumar to be violent. But whether consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, Jaumar contributed to the violence and the culture of violence that is growing more and more prevalent in the community. He participated in one of its main contributory arteries—drug trafficking. Feeding the flow of violence in that way made him culpable in the degradation of the neighborhood. As one police sergeant remarked, the police can “take a corner”, but it is up to residents—those actually living in community— to “hold the corner”.120 As long as a drug dealer or thug is holding the corner, the neighborhood will continue to decline. As a perpetrator,

Jaumar aided the continuing decline of the Gottingen Street - Uniacke Square community.

Jaumar, the perpetrator, was also a victim. He was born a victim. One does not choose the circumstances of one’s birth. There is no choice of parents or environment. When those circumstances are less than ideal, faith informs us to trust in the wisdom of God based on God’s prevailing characteristics of love,

119 Davene Jeffrey and Dan Arsenault, “Murder victim had been suspect in Halifax shooting”. Chronicle Herald, May 15, 2008.

120 Statement made by a police officer at the Ceasefire Chicago Knowledge Exchange Days, hosted by the Ministry of Justice, Black Cultural Centre, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. May 17, 2012.

omniscience and goodness.121 God is working out his plan in reconciling the world to himself. The purpose and meaning of human life is inextricably bound to that plan.122 The reliance on faith under such conditions is not permission to adopt a fatalistic attitude, as people having no choice in what happens to us, but, rather, to meet the challenges of our circumstances. People can choose to overcome life’s difficulties, given the opportunity to do so. As a victim of circumstance and societal systems that limited his possibilities, Jaumar made choices that resulted in tragic consequences.

Jaumar’s victimization began with him as a child of a crack-addicted mother, making the drug culture a part of his life from the beginning.

Chettleburgh notes that along with economic drivers, “the need to escape humdrum and troubled lives back home” draws youngsters to the streets.123

The education system failed Jaumar. Institutional racism persists in the

Canadian public school system. It is evidenced in the form of racist teachers, culturally biased curriculums, and streaming of children into remedial programs.124 It is ironic that Jaumar was put in a special needs class, but did not have his needs met. It is unfortunate that in the twenty-first century, blacks still face the kind of systemic racism that causes black children’s needs to be treated with such disregard. As U.S. President, Barack Obama states, “None of

121 1 John 4:7-8, Rom.11:33-36, and Matt. 19:16-17

122 Eph. 1:9-11

123 Chettleburgh, 25.

124 Scot Wortley and Akwash Owusu-Bempah, 128.

us—black, white, Latino, or Asian— is immune to the stereotypes that our culture continues to feed us, especially stereotypes about black criminality, black intelligence, or the black work ethic.” 125

In a special report on Uniacke Square, journalist Chad Lucas notes that

“once youth make the transition from neighborhood schools where everyone is on the same or relatively close economic scale to a regional school with a mix of socio-economic levels, the stigma of living in public housing becomes heavy.

Their lack is more apparent and they become targets for harassment, ridicule, and recruitment into criminal activity. According to some residents, even teacher expectation is lowered when the teacher realizes the student is from Uniacke

Square.”126

Obama goes on to say that the more a minority strays from the speech, dress and demeanor of the dominant white culture, the more they are subject to negative assumptions. Obama publicly acknowledges his own life as a troubled teen struggling with prejudice and searching for identity as the bi-racial child of a white American mother and Kenyan father. Though he has not personally made racial discrimination a part of his political agenda, his historic ascent to office as the country’s first African-American president has not been unchallenged. He has suffered the ensuing backlash of having his citizenship and patriotism questioned, the validity of his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize challenged, and has been

125 Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006), 279.

126 Chad Lucas, “Special Report Pt. 1,” Chronicle Herald, November 21, 2002.

met with a generally uncooperative spirit in the U.S. Congress since his election.

All of this has placed the United States’ history of racial discrimination squarely in the public’s eye for all to see, including the international community and people of

African descent all over the world. It is a reminder that no matter what one is able to attain, the ugliness of prejudice remains a constant based on false beliefs and stereotypes.

These assumptions are what come to some minds when a young black male walks into an establishment looking for a job. Stereotypes and assumptions come into play when decisions about who to hire, who to prosecute, or who to promote have to be made. It may not be a conscious influence, but negative stereotyping is internalized to the degree that judgments are made subconsciously that result in conscious action.127

The United States is not alone in these attitudes of prejudice. It has been said that the image Canadians wish to portray to the world is one of racial and cultural tolerance, of Canada as a mecca for the oppressed of the world.

However, a dichotomy exists between Canada's public and international image as an "egalitarian" society free from the racism that plagues the United States, and the actual racial reality in this country.128

Jaumar, like many other young black males, was a victim of negative stereotyping. So when he dressed, acted, or spoke differently from what was

127 Obama, 279.

128 Aylward, 40.

considered the norm, he was taken out of the mainstream and placed where he could not thrive.

Jaumar was further victimized by the community. Rather than hold him accountable, the community was complicit in his crimes. Had Jaumar been called into account, he might have avoided being shot. It becomes easy to turn a blind eye when one is reaping benefit from the criminal enterprise. Jaumar loved the children in his neighborhood. A natural outpouring of that love was to buy them treats, help them if their parents could not afford the shoes they needed, and reward them when they did well in school.129 The seriousness of Jaumar’s crimes was minimalized by those who loved him in spite of his character flaws.

His godmother described him as a “good Christian” and referred to his illegal activity as “little issues”.130 The community did not raise its collective voice against what he was doing.131 The community did not “hold the corner.”

There came a time when Jaumar made the decision to renounce his illegal activity and to find legitimate ways to meet his needs. He had gotten a job with the City and was supposed to be starting it within days.132 But before that could happen, Jaumar was gunned down just outside his home. He was shot five times, four bullets to the midsection and one through the heart. Police reports

129 Jaumar’s benevolence to community children was acclaimed at his funeral services and at the community prayer vigil held after his shooting.

130 Michael Lightstone, “Murder victim was ‘good guy,’” Chronicle Herald, May 10, 2008.

131 Sentiments expressed on a facebook page, “~IN LOVING MEMORY OF JAUMAR CARVERY~ C U SOON”, dedicated to the memory of the subject.

132 Robyn Young, “Shooting victim 'wanted to be a better person',” Metro News, May 5, 2008. Note: Subject’s name is misspelled as “Jumar” in the article.

state that two people were spotted fleeing the scene. There is not a clear indication of motive. Speculation on the street is that it was a private vendetta.

The case remains unsolved. 133

The outpouring of sympathy and grief in the community was palpable to anyone passing through at the time. The viewing had to be held in the YMCA gymnasium because the crowd was too large for the funeral home or the church.

The funeral service was overflowing in excess of 500 attendees. Besides the family, the elders in the community, teachers, coaches, teammates, classmates, children—from the youngest to the oldest—all attended the services.134

The overflowing crowds of mourners and the expressions of sympathy belie the fact that Jaumar was a drug dealer. He is remembered as a likeable, well-mannered drug dealer with a conscience. The neighborhood seems to have overlooked or forgiven his transgressions, perhaps in light of the horrible way he died. The widespread attitude in the community was that he met a tragic and undeserved end. 135

133 Dan Arsenault, “Police display new murder evidence,” Chronicle Herald, April 17, 2009.

134 Michael Lightstone, “Murder victim was 'good guy',” Chronicle Herald, May 10, 2008.

135 The facebook page dedicated to the subject’s memory, “~IN LOVING MEMORY OF JAUMAR CARVERY~ C U SOON”, shows numerous pictures of crowds gathered for a tribute in the place where the murder took place.

Effects of Jaumar’s Death: Immediate Family

Jaumar’s mother was inconsolable when she learned of his death. She was living in another province and had been on the phone with Jaumar for their nightly call just minutes before he was murdered. She immediately flew home.

Her pained cries of grief still echo in the ears of those who were present with her those first two days.

In the weeks and months that followed, Susie often complained of sleepless nights. She would also say that Jaumar visited her,136 that she could smell him, or hear his voice.137 She also became increasingly agitated that the police were not making an arrest.138

Church attendance and participation had remained steady for Susie in the first three years following Jaumar’s death. Now she no longer attends church.

Her manner and appearance indicate that she has returned to some drug use.

She is seen around the neighborhood, but has relocated twice and at present has no fixed address.

Jaumar’s younger brother Jerome was nearly 19 years old when Jaumar was killed and yet what he knew concerning the possible consequences of that

136 Susie makes references to these visitations on the facebook page dedicated to Jaumar.

137 See Beverley Raphael’s book, The Anatomy of Bereavement (New Jersey: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1994),40-41 for a detailed description of these symptoms. She explains that the bereaved experiences such a strong longing for the deceased, it is as if they are searching for a lost object…looking everywhere to find it.

138 Public speech at a prayer vigil for victims of violence held at Cornwallis Street Baptist Church.

life did not stop him from becoming involved in drug trafficking. In the aftermath of his brother’s death, Jerome’s grief manifested as anger. Within six months after Jaumar’s death, Jerome was arrested and convicted, spending nine months in jail for an assault.

When he was released, Jerome returned home and began to associate with the same group of people as before. After some months of drifting between

Nova Scotia and Toronto, Jerome secured a job and moved away.

Jaumar’s brother admitted that as a young teen he had been involved in swarmings, where a group of five or six kids would instigate a fight with a lone person on the street, beating the person up, sometimes severely.139 In a newspaper interview in 2010, Jerome expressed great remorse at having participated in what he can now see as abhorrent violent behavior. He asserts that the youth commit these senseless acts of violence out of boredom or to

“entertain” themselves. He also stated that even if one did not want to be involved, the fear or rejection by peers was a strong motivator.140 The lack of opportunity for positive engagement with youth was expressed in an article about

Uniacke Square that had run in the Chronicle Herald in 2002. There are not enough after-hours activities and programs to keep youth in the area occupied,

139 Swarmings had become a big problem in Halifax in the early 2000’s, had tapered off some, and made a resurgence in 2010. Swarmings are discussed in the Clairmont report: “Violence and Public Safety in the HRM: A Report to the Mayor as a Result of the Roundtable” (Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2008).

140 CBC News article “Halifax man regrets swarming” from website http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/10/20/ns-former-swarmer-speaks.html (accessed December 15, 2011). Jerome is referred to in the article by his nickname, “Romeo”.

especially on weekends.141 This is still true today. The area lacks the facilities, the financial, and hence the human resources for programming to positively occupy youth at the times most needed--evenings and weekends.

Despite a difficult start, Jerome is, so far, one of the lucky ones. He has ostensibly gotten his life on track. He has matured and by speaking out whenever he can, he has become an advocate against violence. He is currently living and working in another province.

Jaumar also had a younger sister. Because she is still a minor at the time of this writing, her circumstances will not be discussed in detail. She was very close to her brother and adjusting after his death has been difficult for her. A girl of twelve needs her parents firmly around her to navigate the waters of adolescence.142 Her father was physically absent, her mother was emotionally absent, and her remaining brother was in jail. A few years after her brother died, she quit school and left home. After being away for more than a year, she returned home, but has not returned to school.

141 Chad Lucas, “Square's most precious resource,” Chronicle Herald, November 22, 2002.

142 Tami M. Videon, “The Effects of Parent-Adolescent Relationships and Parental Separation on Adolescent Well-Being,” Journal of Marriage and Family Vol. 64, No. 2 (May, 2002): 490.

Effects of Jaumar’s Death: Community and Church

Jaumar’s community, geographic and relational, mourned his death. The surrounding geographical community where he grew up and had made his home was engulfed in sorrow. Flowers, phone calls and written expressions of grief filled his mother and grandmother’s households. The wake was correctly predicted to be so large that it had to be held in the local gymnasium. Hundreds of young people between the ages of eight and thirty filled the room and they surrounded the building.

Relationally, Jaumar’s funeral was attended by people he knew from various communities in Nova Scotia, other provinces, and the United States. He has family in several provinces and in the US. Many traveled to be by his mother’s side. The waves of violence billow far and in Jaumar’s case, the ripple could be felt as far away as British Columbia to the west and Virginia to the south.

The shock of this kind of violence happening in Nova Scotia was stunning for most, especially Canadians who had never experienced such horror. A second level of shock was in not being able to grasp that this had happened to

Jaumar, characterized as a kind young man who would never hurt anyone.

There is still a cognitive dissonance experienced by those who try to reconcile the “nice boy” with the drug dealer. Though he was a drug dealer, Jaumar is remembered by the neighborhood as a sweet kid who was loved. After his death, a mural was painted in his honor on one of the stone walls in Uniacke

Square.

Pain and denial are classic symptoms of grief. The community grieves the loss of this young man, but in that grief is the dawning of truth. There is a violence problem. In a closely knit community where many people are related, such a senseless act of violence can rip the threads of the community, pitting family against family. People may feel compelled to take sides when they know the parties involved. Tensions mount where there was once ease. Fights break out among the children related to victim and perpetrator. People may even seek revenge or seek vigilante justice as they feel let down by the criminal justice system.

An entirely different dimension is added when one considers that it is black-on-black crime in a city known for its historic racism. One begins to wonder if Jaumar’s mother’s claim of the police putting forth little effort has any merit. The sense of injustice or dissatisfaction with the lack of justice in such cases creates an atmosphere of unrest and insecurity in the community.

The question persists in the minds of residents: “If perpetrators of violence are not brought to justice, what does that mean for our lives as we move about the neighborhood?” A pastor whose regular barbershop was shot up by a gunman expresses concern about safety because it is where he and his sons go for their haircuts. Living in a place all their lives, people are now careful about where they go, which streets they dare walk, and not being out after dark.

Parents who grew up in the neighborhood now have to talk to their children about being careful in the neighborhood. Not only do they have to talk about the drug problem, they have to be concerned about possible violence. For

blacks, who have endured systemic racism from the founding of the city, the conversation must now move beyond what their children may experience at the hands of others. They now must be on guard for what they may experience at the hands of their own people.

I have spent some time sharing the details of the events of Jaumar’s death and its effects on his family members and the neighborhood to emphasize the tremendous wounded-ness caused by the violence that seems to be overtaking the city. There has always been violence in the HRM, but as discussed in chapter 2, the violence that is being experienced in today’s HRM is shocking because it is at the hands of children.

The case of this young man is an example of this new norm of violence.

Jaumar Carvery is a casualty of war. He is a casualty of a new mindset among youth about the value of human life, the way one copes with anger, the way one navigates confrontation, and the way one settles disputes. Jaumar Carvery is one young man, but he not atypical of the youth in the study area. He is not the anomaly. Drug trafficking and gun violence have been described as

“commonplace” in Uniacke Square by residents who are fed up with the housing development’s criminal activity.143 Jaumar’s life and his death seem to exemplify a new norm.

Those who have been victims ask themselves how did this happen? What did they miss? Jaumar’s teachers wonder what could have been done or said to

143 Sherri Borden Colley, “You need to sit back and evaluate just who you are,” Chronicle Herald, May 12, 2008.

save him. Those who are believers bring these questions to the local church.

The realization that one of the children who had grown up in church could end up shot dead in the street moved the church to community action. Sorrow was turned into purpose as the church sought ways to prevent another like tragedy in the future. In the next chapter, some of the strategies employed and their effectiveness will be discussed.

CHAPTER 5

MINISTRY STRATEGIES

The case of Jaumar Carvery illustrates that violence does not normally happen in a vacuum. It is not limited to the parties involved in the immediate incident. It is an insidious evil that touches everyone. It has many victims and many perpetrators. It changes the fabric of a community and then a city. The change may be almost imperceptible at first. Then suddenly, people’s behaviors and interactions have altered the very concept of “neighborhood”. Violence threatens people’s freedom and their security. It robs our children of their innocence and youth. It distorts thinking and blurs reason. It causes unimaginable pain and irreversible destruction—of homes, of lives, of people. It can only be contained when the community decides to contain it. Police can take any corner. It is up to community to hold the corner.

According to Albert Raboteau in his seminal work, Slave Religion, the black church in and since slavery has always practiced a “watch care” over its members. The church, as a fellowship of believers, covenants together to be supportive and careful of one another. Many Black Baptist churches today still practice covenant renewal, typically on the Sunday they observe the Lord’s

Supper.144 The covenant my church renews on Communion Sunday declares that we “watch over, pray for, exhort and stir up each other, unto every good

144 Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1978), 179-181.

word and work”. We understand the obligation to extend beyond the walls of the building as we seek to be ministers of God’s grace to all who stand in need of

God’s mercy.

Poverty, under-education, unemployment, and a sense of hopelessness and despair have been identified as contributing determinants to the crime and violence overtaking the area. Teenagers, especially those having difficulty in school or who may have already dropped out of school are enticed by the prospect of quick and “easy” money.145 In the work of addressing the challenges of the community around Cornwallis Street Baptist Church, it has been my aim to seek ways of abating some of these contributing factors to violence. This section of the work is a basic outline of considerations and suggestions that may be helpful for those who are facing some of the same challenges.

These recommendations are numbered for ease of reference and do not necessarily signify any chronology. Most of these actions can be carried on concurrently.

Recommendations

1. Addressing this issue is not something any one pastor can do alone.

Partners are needed. Finding partners is the first step in developing an

effective strategy. One level of partnership is with local law

enforcement. Talk to the police officers assigned to your area. Meet

145 Chad Lucas, “Special Report Pt.1,” Chronicle Herald, November 21, 2002.

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with the Chief of Police or the Public Safety Office to become familiar

with their policies and strategies. Find common ground. I was

fortunate that just two weeks after I was inducted into my church, the

police reached out to me to introduce themselves and give me a

history of their relationship to the residents in my community. They

actually informed me of the problems the community was having with

crime and violence and the strategies they had employed to address

the issues. The relationship has been ongoing as we periodically meet

together to discuss new initiatives, what is working, and what has not

been effective.

A key element in the discussion with law enforcement is the challenge

to think outside of traditional ways of responding to the problem. The

over-representation of blacks in the criminal justice system has made

the black community suspicious of law enforcement. It is racialization

that led to the destruction of Africville and that criminalizes young black

boys who look and act differently from their white counterparts. In their

book, Crimes of Colour, Chan and Mirchandani explain: “Many black

mothers are in a different set of relationships to police from white

mothers. The worries black mothers may have about their children

being late home from school can be as much to do with fears of police

harassment as with fears of sexual assault.”146

146 Wendy Chan and Kiran Mirchandani,13. 101

Because of the history of adversity between African Nova Scotians and

law enforcement, it is important to keep this relationship as healthy as

possible, making repeated opportunities for positive dialogue and

interaction.

2. Partnerships should also be formed with local area churches across

denominational and ecumenical lines. This is not a black problem or a

Baptist problem. This is a city problem. It needs the attention and

energy of the entire city. Bring the issue and your concerns to your

local ministerial, ecumenical councils, and interreligious groups. If

there is not a group formed, form one. I started the Safer Communities

Task Force along with several community leaders, clergy, and law

enforcement officers as an off shoot of the Mayor’s Roundtable on

Violence. Expand your reach to get education providers, health

providers, and business on board. Each community sector has a stake

in a safer community. Once you have a good cross section of

representation (including community members), meet with the mayor

and / or city officials to bring your concerns. Get a commitment from

the city to devote some resources towards the effort to eradicate

violence. It is important to garner support from all sectors, but

someone has to lead the effort. A strong clergy coalition dedicated to

the work will keep the effort going, even if others drop off. Bring as

many people into the conversation as you can.

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3. As you develop these relationships, begin the conversation with the

community. One of the first things the clergy coalition should do is

hold a community meeting to hear what the community believes its

problems are. If law enforcement relationships have not been good,

invite law enforcement into the community to talk to the people and

begin to build better, more trusting relationships. Include the youth in

the conversation. They are your best reach into the drug / violent sub-

culture. The youth know the players. You may be able to speak

directly to perpetrators to hear what their frustrations are. Hearing

directly from them can get you to the core of the problems more

quickly. When a community meeting is held, there must be supports

planned for those who may need immediate help. Real alternatives

have to be available for youngsters who want to make an immediate

change. A child off the streets needs someplace to go.

4. A North American solution to the problem of inner city violence needs

to be developed. Neither the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches

(CABC) nor the African United Baptist Association (AUBA) has a

support mechanism to address the problems of violence with inner city

youth. Until five years ago at the August 2007 historic joint convention

of both bodies, the history of racism in the church had not been

formally addressed, so the CABC did not seek to serve the black

church at all. And though the AUBA is more active in the CABC than it

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has ever been in history, the CABC programming does not include a

multiculturalism component outside of worship services.

As an American, I draw most of my references for advice and support

from the United States. The Progressive National Baptist Convention

and mission organizations like the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission

Convention provide information on addressing contemporary issues

that affect black youth. William Jones, the CEO of Focus HOPE in

Detroit, Bill Strickland, CEO of Manchester Bidwell in Pittsburgh, and

Frank Perez of CeaseFire Chicago have all done phenomenal work in

addressing inner city violence. They have all visited Halifax and I have

had talks with them about strategy. This is not enough. It is my belief

that a crisis of this proportion needs a concerted effort calling for a

North American solution to this problem. It should be on the top of the

list of priorities for the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC

and resources should be allocated to effectively address the issue at

all levels, from public policy to legislation to implementation. That

needs to happen in the US and Canada. The first step may be to form

a North American Council on the issue.

5. Engage in public policy development. Public policy on all levels of

Canadian government has to reflect an unbiased treatment of its

residents. Cities and communities must be designed in a way that

acknowledges, supports, and values its indigenous populations. There

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must be ongoing conversation between residents and the city about

upcoming building projects and what is planned for the neighborhood

in particular, especially as we see more gentrification of inner city

communities. Some of the frustration and anger that grips the hearts

of our young people is the sense of insecurity and uncertainty they feel

about where and how they live. If we can vision together with city

planners about our neighborhoods, it is possible to muster some

energy that will cause community members to take a stand against the

violence going on around them. A step towards this is shifting from

the “deficit lens”—seeing only the problems and the associated stigma

and stereotypes of public housing that is so commonly applied to

Uniacke Square and surrounding area, to a lens that consciously

identifies the strengths and the assets that exist in all communities,

however difficult their circumstances may be.147 There has to be a

grass-roots, capacity-building, community development approach that

is led by community residents from within rather than political and

municipal directives from without.

Cornwallis Street Baptist Church along with the North End Community

Health Centre and the Mi’kmaq Native Friendship Centre have been

advocating for just such an approach. The Halifax Regional School

Board closed the St. Patrick’s Alexandra School located directly across

147 Silver, 25.

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from Uniacke Square in June 2011. These three community groups

submitted proposals to keep the building to re-purpose it as a

community centre offering programs and supports for the residents in

the area. The city opted to sell the property to a developer. Initiated

by the church, with appeals to city council, letter-writing campaigns,

rallies, and marches, the city’s decision was met with protest from

residents. After a year-long court battle, the Supreme Court of Nova

Scotia overturned the sale. The Court decided that the community

groups have a right to propose their solution to the city and to have

that proposal evaluated separate and apart from any for-profit

proposals. If the community groups can present a viable business plan

that outlines use for the property that the city deems “beneficial” to

residents and a financial plan that demonstrates the groups can

sustain the property, the property will be sold or granted to the

community groups. This action is in keeping with Silver’s position on

internal community development. Silver states that this should be the

approach no matter how long it may take. It is “a “tailored” approach—

programs and institutions and initiatives re-shape their work to fit the

particular realities of the people who have experienced spatially

concentrated racialized poverty, with all the damage that such a

condition can cause. It is a locally-focused approach—hire locally,

purchase locally, re-invest locally—in order to build from within.”148

148 Silver, 30.

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The community will now not only get an opportunity to propose a use

for this community asset, but was able to add its input to the new policy

governing the disposal of surplus schools. The new policy specifically

added a community consultation process and bid solicitation that will

now allow communities the first opportunity to make a proposal for any

future surplus properties.

Education policy and employment policy should also be reviewed. The

African Canadian Services Division of the Department of Education

along with the Council of African Canadian Education makes policy

recommendations to the Minister of Education on behalf of African

Nova Scotians. Helping parents negotiate the system to have their

concerns heard can be one way the church gets actively involved.

6. Find creative initiatives to pilot that can potentially change lives. In her

book, Healing the Inner City Child: Creative Arts Therapies with At-risk

Youth, Vanessa Camilleri explores ways that inner city life experience

can be expressed in various art forms as a way of providing therapy to

youth who are trying to navigate difficult living situations.149 These

problems took a long time to build and they will take even longer to

tear down, but every chip of the chisel helps. Police, clergy, and

community have been partnering in creative ways in cities all over

149 Vanessa A. Camilleri, Healing the Inner City Child: Creative Arts Therapies with At-risk Youth (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007).

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North America as the problem of violence grows. Look at some

programs to potentially try out. Two that my city is currently piloting

are: “Pathways to Education”, that connects youth with mentors that

walk with them for the entire four years of high school. The second

initiative is officially named The Uptown Drug Market Intervention, 150

But the clergy involved call it Operation Choose Life. The program

invites drug traffickers who are about to go to jail to choose instead to

go into a year-long program that will educate and equip them to

become positive contributing members in society. There are certain

components that must be present in a strategy such as this if it is to be

successful. Former Nevada state senator, Valerie Wiener, was

actively involved in youth issues in the 1970s. Her book, Winning the

War Against Youth Gangs (1999), outlines these components as crisis

intervention: helping youths to resolve their crises; outreach: making

organizations, programs, and individuals accessible; diversion:

directing youth away from negative activity; counseling: guided help in

resolving personal issues; role modeling: providing peers and adults

with positive examples; mentoring: offering assistance and direction;

drug prevention / treatment: making education and treatment available;

conflict resolution: teaching coping skills and anger management;

leadership development: re-routing energies and talents to positive

150 Details can be found at http://www.halifax.ca/Police/UptownDrugMarketIntervention.html

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acts; and job training: skill / career development opportunities. Wiener

also points out that sometimes tattoo removal and temporary housing

may need to be available.151 Participants in this kind of program may

have few alternatives when it comes to being in a safe place removed

from negative influences.

Operation Choose Life was planned over many months with local

clergy, service providers, and community members who knew and

could influence the perpetrators. An intervention was held with them

and they each heard how their drug trafficking was affecting lives and

community. They each opted into the program. These young men in

this program knew my case study, Jaumar. Their experiences are

similar. They have followed similar paths that could have ended in the

same tragic way. But these young men have gotten off the streets

and are now in programs to retool so that they may redirect their lives.

This has probably been the most rewarding effort—to see five lives

changed and hopefully, saved.

7. Keep the issue in the public eye. It helps to gather momentum.

Residents in my community are aware of the problem every day. But

the entire city needs to be kept aware. It needs to disturb everyone to

the point that they want to take positive action toward its resolution.

151 Valerie Wiener, Winning the War Against Youth Gangs (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 91-92.

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Holding rallies and marches is a good way to energize people around

an issue. Our first major march and rally was an ecumenical call to the

local churches and a widespread call to the community. Several

hundred people showed up, including the mayor and city councilors.

We marched from Cornwallis Street Baptist Church to the Halifax

Common, carrying placards and signs. A coffin was set up on the

Common. After that march, other churches and civic groups in the city

started holding rallies in their areas. The entire city was soon talking

about how to stop the violence. Now there is a march / rally several

times a year happening in different communities.

8. Build media relationships, write op-ed pieces for your local paper, try to

get the story out there. Unfortunately, media often come looking after

a tragedy occurs, but you can be proactive by bringing the issue to the

level of public discourse. Violence should not be the only news from

the community. Each time there is an event or good news happening

in community, notify the media. To lift the stigma off the North End we

try to have celebratory news printed like the “Hope Blooms” initiative of

young entrepreneurs who grow and harvest their own vegetables to

make a salsa they have been marketing on a larger and larger scale

for several years. These youngsters have now been invited to appear

on the television show Dragon’s Den to pitch their business and

possibly get money for expansion. That is good news from Uniacke

Square. I have been able to make media connections in talk radio, 110

television news, and the local newspapers. Once you have the

contacts, you can alert media to any newsworthy events, issue press

releases, etc.

9. The economic infrastructure of the North End must be rebuilt. This

once thriving area can thrive again. Several new small businesses

have cropped up along Gottingen Street. Local residents should be

encouraged to support them and other businesses should be

encouraged to come into the area. Three years ago, the North End

Business Association was formed. Part of its activity has been to lobby

the city government to encourage investment and to lobby banks,

grocers, and key retailers to consider coming into the area. Careful

consideration must be given not to drive local “mom and pop”

enterprises out of business, but some major presence is needed to

bring revenue into the area, to create jobs for residents, and to add

sustainability to the neighborhood.

10. Hold community events that combine fun with a message. Do not

underestimate the power of food in community fellowship to make

connections and to instill hope. Food has always been a major part of

black culture, especially in celebration of life and in the ministry of

reconciliation. Table fellowship holds families and communities

together. Community BBQ’s are a good way to get residents out and

while they enjoy the food and games, take a few minutes to remind

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them of the issues. Having the police cook and serve the food is a

good community outreach that reduces tension in law enforcement –

civilian relationships. It also teaches young children that police are not

supposed to be the enemy. We hold a Community BBQ each summer

and it has been a great success.

Another annual activity is the Neighborhood Clean-Up Day in the

spring and the Community Garden opening. We also recently held a

“Save Our Sons, Save Our Sisters” (SOS) basketball tournament. It

was organized by a coalition of pastors who have been working

together on the violence issue. All of these activities build relationships

among neighbors and helps keep the spirit of and life in the

community.

11. Keep reiterating the message that the community has some

responsibility for what happens on its streets. The community cannot

turn a blind eye to the improprieties it witnesses. Crime must be

reported to be stopped. People must learn that reporting a crime is not

“snitching”. This is a difficult code to break. As a reporter noted in a

2008 story, “The prevailing sentiment around the neighborhood

according to residents who are interviewed by press is that those who

talk to police or disclose information become targets for violent

attacks.”152 Residents must learn that it is better to protect your child

152 Kelly Shiers, “Another Halifax murder,” Chronicle Herald, June 2, 2008. 112

and your home by a phone call than by a gun. The police cannot be

effective in any community if the residents choose not to cooperate.

12. I have learned that this work requires long-term consistent clergy

leadership. Urban violence is a complex problem with many facets to

consider. One has to be committed to the community and become a

familiar face that residents, young and old, feel they can trust. Clergy

at the helm of the effort to stop this killing sends a strong message that

God is present. The proclamation of freedom from the bondage of sin

becomes the hope that keeps community united in the struggle.

The church needs to reflect on how it can be more present in

community and relevant in its messaging, so that youth are drawn to

hear and embrace the liberating truth of the gospel. It cannot be a

soft-soaped word. Young people facing hard realities in life need hard

truth to equip them. They need to be challenged to think analytically to

be able to make good decisions.153

If there is not a youth ministry component in the church, start one. The

youth need to be the ones who set the agenda from the beginning.

They will then take ownership in its success.154 Find out what topics

they want to discuss, make sure the ministry is undergirded by adult

153 Benjamin Stephens III and Ralph C. Watkins, From Jay-Z to Jesus (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2009), 76-82.

154 Ibid, 44-48.

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mentor support, and budget for the ministry to show them they are

important to the church.

The key to reaching these young people and snatching them out of the fire is to be genuine with them. In an earnest effort to understand what they are going through and how to best serve them, we must learn to be better listeners.

They are trying to tell us something. Every action speaks. They are astonished when someone cares enough to listen.

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CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

The neighborhood was stunned when a likeable 21-year-old man was gunned down a few feet from the community police office in the public housing development of North Central Halifax known as Uniacke Square. A harsh reality has begun to dawn that more African Nova Scotian males will be lost in the war on the streets if strong and deliberate measures are not taken to stem the tide of violence and save these youngsters.

Street violence is increasing as more of the youth in the community drop out of school, get involved with the drug trade, and carry weapons as a necessary consequence of that lifestyle. As the pastor in the neighborhood to this young man and his family, as well as many of the residents in the area, I needed to explore ways to minister to young people in this context to try to redirect them to more positive and productive choices for their lives. This thesis work has been the avenue to explore the situation in depth and devise those strategies. It has helped me see the complex world these young people navigate daily. It has helped me to understand better their challenges and to see life from their perspective.

Human beings are shaped by the influences on their lives from every aspect of their existence. These may be familial, economic, social, physical, and psychological. We develop by what we learn theoretically and empirically. 115

Effective ministry must not only see the behavior that is exhibited outwardly, it must seek to understand the reasons for that behavior. It is a professional responsibility of ministers of the gospel to withhold judgment in an earnest effort to uncover and help others discover the underlying motives that result in what is or potentially could be destructive action.

That is not to say that circumstances and influences, no matter how harsh or undesirable, mitigate or ameliorate anti-social behavior. It is to say, however, that contextualization of behavior—understanding what leads to it and the reality of life for those exhibiting such behavior is an element that cannot be ignored if one is to interact sincerely with and minister to persons who are practicing the unacceptable. It is also necessary to help those who may fall victim to it.

Ministry in such situations must be unbiased. It should not waver in its proclamation of what is good and true and right according to the word of God, but it must be unbiased in its administration, as much as humanly possible. It must be offered in love even to the unlovely. Ministers should always be human purveyors of God’s mercy and God’s grace, most especially in the uncomfortable and perhaps distasteful position of spiritual aid to the perpetrator of violence. It is in seeing beyond the act to its base causality that the minister may address the behavior in a way that reaches into the heart of the perpetrator. The ability to do this, for those who are not trained counselors or psychologists, requires empathy.

One must be able to comprehend life in very different terms than what may be one’s own lived out experience. In considering the realities of life for those who

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are still a marginalized people in the HRM, empathy can help prevent cynicism and further victimization.

Gun violence is increasing in cities all over North America. In my immediate context most of the violence is related to drug trafficking. Strategies must be devised to address this violence at its core. The history of the Gottingen

Street area indicates that violence had its beginnings in the blight that resulted as legitimate businesses closed their doors and vacant lots and empty buildings increased. The face and feel of the neighborhood changed. Its energy and life slowly drained away. The criminal element crept in. 155

In partnership with urban blight, other major contributors to the violence in the area are under-education and unemployment.156 Drug trafficking is seen as a viable economic alternative for those who cannot support themselves any other way. Any strategy that is used must be a multi-pronged approach to address the multiple levels of involvement in crime and violence. The three prongs that are the most apparent are:

1. The youth who have not been lured into the drug culture. They must

be kept out by providing whatever helps are needed to make sure they

do well in school and that they have healthy, wholesome, and

engaging extra-curricular activities to occupy them.

155 Stephen Kimber, “Inside the Square”, The Coast (March 2007)

156 James, et al., 83. Chapter 2 discusses the link between the racial discrimination in schools and the employment sector that causes youth to drop out, thus limiting employment opportunities. Lack of legitimate employment drives them to illegitimate means of provision.

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2. Those who are moderately involved. They must be lured away from it

by alternatives that keep them out of jail. They have to be offered

something that will meet their economic needs while helping them gain

employable skills. In most cases they will need education upgrades.

3. Those that are firmly rooted in the criminal enterprise. Some of these

are beyond the reach of social programming, but they must be stopped

from recruiting the others into deeper criminal activity. Most have

already been to jail and are becoming more hardened criminals. The

reach can probably only be made by someone who has walked away

from the same situation.

The first two groups are the most important in our current crisis. If we can cut off the supply of criminals by successfully addressing the first two groups, the old group will eventually disappear by attrition. This would be an effective first strike toward stemming the tide. It is the helps and supports for long-term effectiveness that church, community, and government must be committed to providing that will make the real difference.

Even beyond these ills is the cause at the very base of the problem.

Violence, at its core, sprouts from feeling of pain turned to anger. “The marginalization of African Canadians through social and symbolic exclusion is deeply embedded in the country’s social, political, economic, and legal

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institutions.”157 When the country was being settled—colonized by Europeans who decided to make it their new home—a prejudicial and disparate social dynamic was built along with the brick and mortar being laid. People of African descent were excluded from participating as full citizens from the beginning and have been struggling to achieve equality and equal treatment ever since. The frustration and anger arising from feelings of helplessness in navigating an unbalanced social dynamic has reached a pinnacle of sorts with this present generation. The expression of their frustration is violence.

Noted professor, philosopher and activist, Cornel West states that a serious discussion on race must first begin with what is wrong with American society. West maintains that how we frame the discussion determines our perception and response. The focus should not be on people, as "them" or

"other" but on systems that permit or prohibit the free movement, participation, and expression of people in the society in which they live.158

The young black generation are [sic] up against forces of death, destruction, and disease unprecedented in the everyday life of black urban people. The raw reality of drugs and guns, despair and decrepitude, generates a raw rage, that among past black spokespersons, only Malcolm X's speech approximates... If we are to build on the best of Malcolm X, we must preserve and expand his notion of pyschic conversion that cements networks and groups in which black community, humanity, love, care, and concern can take root and grow.159

157 James, et al., 89.

158 Cornel West, Race Matters (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1993), 2.

159 West, 104.

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Though West is addressing the plight of blacks in America, similar attitudes persist in Canada and are having the same effect on blacks in Canadian society.

Blacks are highly urbanized in Canada with 90% of Canada's total black population residing in just six cities: Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Halifax, and Vancouver. The black population in Nova Scotia is only 2.1% of the total population of the province per the 2006 census.160 Yet, approximately 9-10% of the Nova Scotia prison population is black.

I have chosen one case to explore in this work. I zoomed in on the murder of Jaumar Carvery as a type to show the devastating effects of street violence on individuals who are victims and perpetrators. Now, I ask you to zoom out and consider the effect of street violence on society as a whole. The patterns detected in the case can be “carried over as projective models to other situations” by reflective transfer.161 By projecting the possibilities in other cases that contain some of the same markers, such as inner city neighborhood, single parent household, under-education, lack of job opportunity, etc., policy may be developed resulting in action that may be taken early enough to inhibit a similar outcome. Jaumar may have been lost but we do not have to lose others if we learn from Jaumar’s example and adjust our thinking.

160 Scot Wortley and Akwash Owusu-Bempah, 126.

161 Donald A. Schön, and Martin Rein. Frame Reflection (New York, NY: BasicBooks, 1994), 204. Schön was Ford Professor Emeritus in the department of urban studies and planning at MIT. He died in 1997.

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In her book, Killing Rage: Ending Racism, American author, feminist, and social activist, bell hooks makes the point that the church has always been the place where blacks have learned "oppositional ways of thinking", critical to survival under the oppression of the dominant society. It was the church's message of human limitation and frailty that helped blacks to resist and find hope in deliverance from their suffering at the hands of white oppressors.162

hooks notes that youth today, to whom religion is not central, do not have the same empowering worldview to help their thinking counter the prevailing culture's colonizing teachings. They are not being taught the same oppositional thinking as their ancestors. Without an alternative belief system, they embrace the values of the prevailing system. They begin to see themselves as others project. They internalize the messages of inferiority, helplessness, social dependency, and unworthiness hurled at them from those who exclude and discount them on a daily basis. They take on a victim mentality.

"In order not to identify as victims, black folks must create ways to highlight issues of accountability that accurately address both the nature of our victimization within white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and the nature of our complicity. We have to develop strategies that call attention to the issues as valid and in need of redress without subscribing to a "paradigm of victimization."163

162 bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1995), 57.

163 Ibid, 58.

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Cheryl Sanders, professor of Christian Ethics at the Howard University

School of Divinity, describes the action we must take as “empowerment ethics”.

Sanders defines “empowerment” as the “process by which an individual or group conveys to others the authority to act”. She outlines seven approaches to empowerment: 164

 Testimony: personal accounts of religious conversion that inspire;

 Protest: public outcry on behalf of the oppressed;

 Uplift: inwardly directed counterpart of protest that encourages;

 Cooperation: joining forces with other oppressed groups to develop

goals and strategies for progress;

 Achievement: focusing efforts toward self-advancement mainly

through education;

 Remoralization: self-directed positive transformation for those

previously demoralized;

 Ministry: the church as the principal arena for exercising

empowerment by serving the needs of others;

Sanders’ empowerment paradigm is a call for an ethical response to the challenge of centuries of demoralization. Continuous effort must be made to

164 Cheryl J. Sanders, Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 4-7.

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educate, evangelize, and improve the economic and social environment of people who have been denied full participation in society. I have recommended strategies that couple the church’s responsibility of being the proponent of oppositional thinking as hooks describes it and a partner in empowerment as

Sanders prescribes.

In relation to urban blight, the policy on urban housing, how neighborhoods are planned, what type and economic level of housing will be built, and who will be able to own is an ongoing conversation for North End

Halifax, where, as Schön points out, the community is one character (seen as blighted or impoverished or decaying) and the city planner or expert is the other character in the drama. Each side has framed the situation through its lens—its perspective.165 A conversation must be held and residents must be allowed around the table to help determine their own future.

I began this work with theological questions on theodicy and predestination. Why does a good God allow evil? How are we to understand these events in light of God’s plan for humankind and for us as individuals?

As intellectual beings in the image of God, we have been endowed with the ability to reason. God has given us the freedom to exercise our own wills and to choose our own paths. Our choices have consequences, and because we are imperfect, we sometimes choose wrongly. In God’s goodness, God does not

165 Schön, 24.

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force us to comply with his will, but teaches us truth so that we will choose wisely.

Traditional theodicy arguments include the incomprehensibility of God, divine punishment of the wicked or chastisement of believers, and suffering for the sake of spiritual growth. 166 There is an element of truth in them all. But I am convinced that our focus should not be on the reason for evil or suffering. We should rather be focused on God, remembering that God is sovereign and God’s sovereignty must always be understood in light of God’s revelation in Jesus

Christ. The biblical witness testifies to the love of God in the atoning sacrifice of

Christ and to the covenant faithfulness of God in opening the way of salvation to all who accept his atonement. Christ is elected and in him, the people of God and all of creation, such that the God who wills to live in community invites us to commune with him.

The suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ are the testimony of God that God journeys with humankind in the exercise of our vitality and freedom. We choose and God respects our choices. When I consider the reach Jaumar

Carvery had into the lives of people, far and wide, I am challenged as a minister to exceed his reach. The message of the gospel must cause an impact that creates a stronger, greater ripple effect than the violence he perpetuated and the legacy of pain and sorrow in its quake. The community, and especially the young men and women of North Central Halifax desperately need to grasp the truth of

166 Migliore, 106-107.

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the gospel. They need to hear that God loves them. They need to know that by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, they can make better choices that offer life rather than death. They need to be taught that the gracious God who wills to be in communion with his creatures has a place at his table for them. He does not force us to come, but gives us the freedom to return love with love.167

In light of the truth of God’s love and faithfulness in Christ Jesus, we must reject the notion of pain and suffering in the black community as either payment for sin or even chastisement. We must reject the thought that our children are predestined for destruction. We must reject thinking that we are powerless and cannot change our destinies or theirs. That is fatalistic thinking.

To understand predestination as a kind of fatalism is a short-sighted and apathetic view to the work of liberation. It is precisely in answer to the clarion of resistance we are to rally. We are called to struggle against injustice and oppression in the world. We cannot be complacent as we conveniently lean on the staff of fatalism. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Our reaction to the violence threatening our society is to devise strategies to defeat it. To offer opportunities that will redirect the attention and energy of those most tempted to innovate so that they may have access to the means to thrive in our society.

167 Migliore, 109.

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The Church must lead the charge to rescue the perishing and to show our children a more excellent way. Sin is in the world, but Christ’s finished work on the cross has conquered sin. In the biblical witness, Romans 5 explains that sin entered the world through the one man, Adam.168 The price for sin is death.169

Therefore by his defeat of death through his resurrection, Jesus Christ demonstrates that he has conquered sin.

Though individual acts of sin continue and we experience the consequences of those acts, we are no longer prisoners of sin. Romans 6:6 declares, “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” The Bible teaches that we have victory through Christ Jesus170 because he is the atoning sacrifice for our sin.171 He has conquered death and sin through his resurrection,172 as the sinless, blameless Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.173 Christ’s conquering of sin on the cross conquers the effects of sin through the promise of eternal life.174 For those who grasp the salvation Jesus offers, sin has no dominion over them or their world. Further, the Bible states

168 Rom. 5:12

169 Rom. 6:23

170 1 Cor. 15:57

171 1 John 2:2

172 1 Cor. 15:55

173 John 1:29

174 John 3:16

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that we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus, who loves us, and there is nothing that can separate us from that love.175

That is the proclamation we are called to make—without ceasing. We can never give up hope. We must continually shine the light and point the way to

Christ. God’s salvific work in Christ reinforces the belief that we are called to struggle against this evil that seeks to devour our children. We struggle because we see in Christ that God is struggling, too.176

175 Rom. 8:37-39

176 Cone, 178.

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APPENDIX

African Nova Scotian Homicide Victims - Compiled by Sherri Borden Colley Jan. 3, 2013

(List is not exhaustive)

2012

Corey Lucas, 36, shot dead on Clifton Street in Halifax May 25. Man charged

Narico Danefu Downey, 23, shot in North Preston on July 29. One person charged.

Kaylin Todd Diggs, 26, beat to death on Argyle Street in Halifax. No arrests.

The remains of Shana Carter, formerly of Dartmouth, found in December 2012 in Blair Township, Ontario. She was reported missing in 2010. One person charged with first- degree murder.

Jaivoan Cromwell, 19, formerly of Halifax, shot to death in Toronto in April 2012.

2011

Keya Simon, 19, fatally stabbed outside a Pinecrest Drive apartment building in Dartmouth Jan. 8 Stacey Adams, 20, shot in Lake Echo April 10. Police charged man who hasn't been arrested yet.

Nathan Cross, 21, shot in North Preston April 24. No arrest.

Jefflin Beals, 25, formerly of Dartmouth shot to death Oct. 2, 2011 in Toronto. Four people charged - one with first-degree murder, three for being accessories after the fact.

Melissa Dawm Peacock, 20, reported missing Nov. 9, 2011. Her body was discovered in July 2012 in rural Colchester County. Two men are charged with first-degree murder in her death.

(Native of Africa) Otillia Chareka, a St. F.X. University Professor, was killed in March 2011. Her husband is charged with first-degree murder. The case is still before the courts.

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2010

Nathaniel Welsh, 23, knocked to the ground with a punch Jan. 1. Charges laid. Case still before the courts.

Casey Marleen Downey, 24, stabbed to death Feb. 7, 2010 in North Preston. Man charged. Case still before the courts.

Ryan White, 21, shot in Halifax July 22. No arrest.

Donald Jermaine (Ducky) Stevenson, 21, shot Oct. 16 in Halifax. No charges.

Daniel Edward Borden, 26, was found shot to death in Newfoundland in March 2010 .

2009

Tyrone Jason Johnston, 31, formerly of Cherry Brook shot outside his Niagara Falls, Ontario home in October 2009.

Andre (Onnie) Jonathan Slawter, 20, was shot to death Jan. 21, 2009 in East Preston. One man acquitted in the killing.

Jerrell Wright-Beals, 19, died in May 2009, one week after he was shot in the head in a drive-by shooting in North Preston.

2008

Darrell (or Darell) Eugene Upshaw, 33, of Cole Harbour, slain with a sword March 11, 2008 in Saint John, New Brunswick. One man acquitted. A 17-year-old youth found guilty of manslaughter.

Jaumar (Maury) Carvery, 21, shot in a sports field near Uniacke Square May 3, 2008. No arrest.

Paul Saunders, 21, stabbed to death April 2008 inside a Cowie Hill apartment. One man convicted in the killing.

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2007

Justin Tyson Tolliver, 32, stabbed to death outside a Halifax apartment. A 17-year-old boy was convicted and sentenced in the case.

2006

Phillip James (Rabbit) Simmons, 33, formerly of North Preston, gunned down outside a house party in Ontario March 8, 2006. Two people were charged.

American sailor Damon Crooks stabbed to death outside a downtown Halifax bar in November 2006.

Martaze Cortaze Provo, 25, of North Preston and Brandon Courtney Beals, 21, of East Preston shot to death Dec. 10, 2006 near an after-hours club in East Preston. Two men acquitted of murder in the case.

2005

Naomi Wendy Kidston, 26, murdered June 7, 2005 in Spryfield

Leon Anthony Adams, shot to death in Halifax May 22, 2005. Police not sure if he was the intended target. No arrest.

2004

Kevin Bowser, 28, gunned down in Uniacke Square July 10, 2004. No arrest.

Dwayne Darcel Paris, 42, shot to death at a Truro motel Dec. 29, 2004. One man sentenced 13 years for manslaughter.

2000

Tyrone Layton Oliver, 20, shot in the back multiple times at a Creighton Street basketball court July 20, 2000.

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1997

Marie Eleanor Desmond, stabbed 33 times Dec. 4, 1997. Her estranged husband convicted of first-degree murder and received a life sentence.

1995

Justin Melvin Reddick, 20, of New Glasgow. died July 25, after being stabbed by a relative.

Shannon Bright (male) beat to death while out on a walk Dec. 23, 1995 in Dartmouth. Two men convicted.

1994

Kimber Leanne Lucas, 24, of Halifax. Her body was found Nov. 23, 1994 behind a North Street building. She had been strangled. She was seven-months pregnant. Unsolved murder.

1988

Donnie Downey was slain at his uncle's Creighton Street home Oct. 30, 1988. Murder remains unsolved.

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Healy, Nicholas M. "In and of the world." Christian Century, May 16, 2012: 26-31.

Hilliard, Donald. Stop the Funeral: Reaching a Generation Determined to Kill Itself. Bloomington: Bethany House Publishers, 2000. 137

Hopkins, Dwight N. Shoes That Fit Our Feet: Sources for a Constructive Black Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993.

Jones, William R. Is God a White Racist?: A Preamble to Black Theology. Boston, Mass: Beacon Hill, 1997.

Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1991.

Paris, Peter J. The Social Teaching of the Black Churches. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1985.

Pinn, Anthony B. Why, Lord: Suffering and Evil in Black Theology. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1995.

Sanders, Cheryl J. Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.

Stephens III, Benjamin and Ralph C. Watkins. From Jay-Z to Jesus: Reaching & Teaching Young Adults in the Black Church. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2009.

Waltke, Bruce K. An Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.

Youth Culture

Anderson, Elijah. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

Barron, Christie. Giving Youth a Voice: A Basis for Rethinking Adolescent Violence. Halifax, NS: Fernwood, 2000.

Sanders, Bill. Youth Crime and Youth Culture in the Inner City. London: Routledge, 2004.

Watts, Meredith W. Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Youth and Violence. Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 1998.

Winlow, Simon and Steve Hall. Violent Night: Urban Leisure and Contemporary Culture. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2006.

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Newspaper Articles

Arsenault, Dan. “Police display new murder evidence.” Chronicle Herald, April 17, 2009.

Colley, Sherri Borden. “You need to sit back and evaluate just who you are.” Chronicle Herald, May 12, 2008.

Davene Jeffrey and Dan Arsenault. “Murder victim had been suspect in Halifax shooting.” Chronicle Herald, May 15, 2008.

Lightstone, Michael. “Murder victim was ‘good guy’.” Chronicle Herald, May 10, 2008.

Lightstone, Michael and Dan Arsenault. “Halifax, we have a violent crime problem.” Chronicle Herald, July 24, 2012.

Lucas, Chad. “Special Report Pt. 1.” Chronicle Herald, November 21, 2002.

Lucas, Chad. “Special Report Pt. 2: Square's most precious resource.” Chronicle Herald, November 22, 2002.

Young, Robyn. “Shooting victim 'wanted to be a better person'.” Metro News, May 5, 2008.

Online Sources / Websites

CBC News Online. May 5, 2008. “Police hunt for culprit in Halifax shooting death” Retrieved from: http://www.cbc.ca/news

CBC News Online. October 10, 2010. “Halifax man regrets swarming” Retrieved from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/10/20/ns-former- swarmer-speaks.html

Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders. Retrieved from: http://www.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Stuttering.html

German Canadian Association of Nova Scotia. Retrieved from: http://www.germancanadianassociation.ca/new/eng/about-us-heritage.html

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Halifax Regional Police Uptown Drug Intervention. Retrieved from: http://www.halifax.ca/Police/UptownDrugMarketIntervention.html

History of racial victimization in Nova Scotia. Retrieved from: http://www.dacosta400.ca/cavalcade/africville.shtml

Major Unsolved Crime Report from: http://www.halifax.ca/police/UnsolvedMurders/info/CarveryJaumar.html

Statistics Canada website: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/legal12a-eng.htm

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