Warrior Of Peace

This was a very powerful meeting (here in our office) and luckily Luke Turf from Westword did the write up...

The ceremony began with a blessing and the lighting of the sage, then an eagle’s feather was presented to a “warrior of peace,” a guest that Denver has welcomed to help end wars before, a guest that the city welcomes again to bring peace to our city’s streets.

Although despair still runs deep in the hood, hope and peace can be found, Aqeela Sherrills told the crowd of about 75 gathered at the Denver Inner City Parish. But people shouldn’t wait for a new leader to bring them peace. No Malcolm X, no Martin Luther King Jr., no Cesar Chavez will take them there.

Each must find their own way.

“Kids fight, that’s just our way of getting to know each other,” Sherrills told the crowd.

But as a kid growing up in Watts, 2.2 miles of the hardest ‘hood in the country, he had no idea that the natural instinct of conflict could lead to such war. After a kid named Night Owl was killed, a key death in the events leading up to the wars of Crips and Bloods, the homies all told Sherrill to claim his side of the tracks when asked and to throw punches when questioned. He took the advice and was drafted into the war which escalated each year until crack hit the streets, turning women to hos and giving gangsters larger caches of weapons. The streets exploded.

Sherrill escaped with his life and even made it to college in the midst of the war. He opened his mind and his heart, discovering that part of what lead him to gang-bangin’ was a sexual assault that he experienced as a kid. Around-the-way, common perception is that victims of sex offenses grow up to be offenders or gay, both taboos in the projects that Sherrill wanted no part of. He never shared his frustration, his humiliation or his anger. Read the Rest here at Westword Blog