ATLANTA – Early one Saturday morning, 12-year-old Jamaine and his friends were enjoying a spirited game of basketball in Grove Park when they were asked to come to a nearby community event. Two hours later, Jamaine stood before an audience of national activists, decrying the violence he said he witnesses virtually every day.
“Were killing each other – its just stupid,” Jamaine said, throwing his hands up in the face of a problem he said he sees regularly in his northwest Atlanta community.
Jamaine’s impromptu speech denouncing black-on-black crime unwittingly became a highlight of “Occupy The Hood Week,” the first-ever national gathering of one of the country’s fastest-growing black activist movements.
“He is one of the most intuitive young men that I have met,” said Abbey Henderson, a member of Occupy the Hood’s Atlanta chapter. “He said white folks used to do it [kill black people] to us before, black folks are doing it now, and asked why.
“And we need to really ask that question,” she added, “so our brothers don’t have to ask that question ever again.”
Henderson was one of several Occupy the Hood Atlanta members who agreed to host Hood Week, where members from all the national chapters came to Atlanta to network, get acquainted and build a stronger movement.
Occupy the Hood was launched in September by a group of men in New York who saw a lack of color in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Since then, the new movement quickly spread to other states.
Atlanta’s chapter quickly grew to be one of the nation’s largest and most active, implementing a “feed the hood” program for more than 500 homeless people in metro Atlanta.
“After that we adjusted, it wasn’t just about feeding the homeless so we went to Maddox Park and did peace parties,” said Henderson, who also runs the Atlanta chapter’s youth program out of her home. “We have a garden started in the West End, too; we’ve got about 29 tomatoes growing.”
During the weekend, activists participated in three teach-ins events in Grove Park: “When Cops Come Knocking” on knowing your legal rights, “Killing is Wack” on violence in communities of color, and “Urban Sustainability” on gardening.
The weekend also included forums among children ages 4 to 13, where topics ranged from thriving in an urban environment to individual “hustles to help pay the bills,” as one 10-year-old explained.
Tasha Davis of Occupy the Hood Indianapolis said such forums help adults do more talking with young people, and less talking at them.
“I feel like people talk about this generation in such a negative way all the time, and they are so smart and they just need somebody to recognize that,” Davis said.
The weekend concluded with a cookout in Maddox Park where OTH Members played chess, gave food and ice cream to children in the park, and talked future plans.
OTH Atlanta, like many national chapters, plans to continue focusing on children in the coming months. They plan more “know your rights” trainings and a back to school program, where they will distribute free school supplies to students and organize workshops to help parents improve relationships with teachers and other school officials.
Henderson said such workshops will urge parents to interact with school administrators “not in a negative way, but by asking, ‘How can we work together to make our children the most productive they can be?’ ”
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