During April, I participated in the Harvard Kennedy School Senior Executive Fellows Program. It was a rigorous program of lectures, workshops and study groups. I was by far the oldest fellow and at age 75 no longer read as fast as I used to. But I managed to keep up by sleeping three hours per night and drinking almost a half a gallon of coffee a day. The Fellows were a diverse group from other states and countries. Hearing about the challenges they faced on their jobs and in their communities demonstrated how we humans are so much alike.
I read cases written by academics focusing on challenges faced by communities, leaders and activists and how they dealt with them. I was particularly captivated by a Harvard Business School case about the “Boston Miracle.” It was a 1990 community effort led by Black ministers in Boston that resulted in there being only one juvenile homicide during a two-and-a-half-year period.
That case has been taught nationally and internationally. Rev. Jeffrey Brown, the chief organizer of that effort, spoke to my class, and the Fellows gave him a standing ovation. After the class I waited in line to meet Rev. Brown and take a picture with him.
When I returned to my seat and checked my cellphone, I saw the devil was busy back in DC. The headline read, “Teen Shot on MLK Avenue as Southwest D.C. Reels from Youth Shootings.”
After hearing a two-hour lecture about the “Boston Miracle” and getting that tragic message from home, I was overwhelmed by the coincidence and the irony. When I returned to DC, I assumed that the uptick in violence against juveniles had generated activities that I could immediately connect with.
How wrong I was.
I had been away for nearly a month and was catching up on my reading. A Washington Post headline read, “DC Sees Seven Homicides in Five Days, the Deadliest Stretch of 2026.” April was a bloody month for DC. I asked friends about the community response to the violence. There was a vigil for one of the teen victims, I was told.
Where is the outrage?
One of the teens was shot two blocks from my church, the Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ. The pastor, Rev. William Young, for the past year has held monthly peace walks in the Bellevue neighborhood. That community has no active civic association, and the turnouts have been light. But the spirit is high. Maybe, as more people join those monthly peace walks, we will be on the road to a “DC Miracle.”
Long-time Ward 8 community activist Philip Pannell can be found at philippannell@comcast.net.
