CHICAGO — Two West Englewood activists are planning to host a community barbecue on the same playground where 12-year-old Kanari Gentry Bowers was fatally shot in her head while playing basketball this month.
West Englewood's Jermaine Williams and Michael Green are organizing the March barbecue, and the date will be finalized after a community gathering at 11 a.m. Saturday at Greater Chicago St. Paul's Missionary Baptist Church at 59th and Winchester.
"Jermaine and myself are tired of seeing all of the senseless violence that's going on in our community," Green said. "We just want the kids in our community to know that we care about them and are here for them in any way positively to help better them."
Kanari was shot Feb. 11 while playing basketball at Henderson Elementary School in the 1900 block of West 57th Street in West Englewood. She died Feb. 15.
Williams and Green organized one of two candlelight vigils for Kanari. Her family hosted another. Williams said he and Green can be voices for change in the neighborhood.
"After she was shot, I just felt like we needed to bring the community back together," Williams said.
Williams said all are invited to Saturday's community meeting. That includes rival gang members.
"All the gang members, all of us went to school together; we're just on different blocks in the neighborhood," Williams said. "We are trying to kill each other, but [with gang members], one of their mothers knows another mother, and their grandmothers know the other grandmothers. Once a person joins a gang, they forget where they came from. It's just senseless."
Williams said he's been in prison twice — once for theft and another time for resisting arrest. But he said the stints in prison — which totaled about a year — can help him teach the next generation valuable lessons.
Williams' longtime friend and Robeson High School classmate Johnny Johnson, who played football at Minnesota and organized a free football camp for Chicago high school players last summer, said Williams "can be a voice of reason in that community."
"I've watch him struggle in life, and I've seen him at his best," Johnson said. "At both points he was level-headed and never got too low or two high. He's always preached family to us, and I believe that'll be his message to his friends, gang members and community members."
