Washington, DC – The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African Americans, calls the 500 murders in the city of Chicago shameful and intolerable given the level of sophisticated crime prevention sociology that exists. The reason why we have reached this mark is because the city of Chicago does not care about Black people and they have allowed conditions, in terms of housing, education, health and economic development to spiral to a level where it will take literally an army to transform.
The National Black Church Initiative sent to Governor Bruce Rauner, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Lt. Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti, Chairman of the Black Caucus Senator Kimberly Lightford, Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health Ms. Julie Morita, Deputy Secretary Mary Livers of the Office of Juvenile Justice andCouncilmember-At-Large Mr. Jason Rogers Williams a comprehensive Black on Black Crime Prevention plan to put an end to this mess. There is simply no excuse here. The government continues to fail African Americans year after year and death after death. This is why the Church stepped up and offered a scientific, comprehensive plan to put an end to this.
Rev. Anthony Evans, President of the National Black Church Initiative says, “Here’s a classic example of what it means to be Black in America and what it means to be White in America. We have witnessed 500 murders in one of the most major cities in this country and there seems to be no will or appetite to solve it. I do not want anybody in the Black community to ever think that the Black Church doesn’t care. And this is why we have stepped up and offered a comprehensive crime prevention program to tackle crime in the 10 most crime ridden neighborhoods in the city of Chicago. Now we need our public officials to do what they are paid to do in giving necessary resources to an organization like mine to begin to solve this problem.”
The state of Illinois and the City of Chicago, if asked what their plan is to eliminate or abate the crime in those neighborhoods, they would be hard pressed to tell you of their comprehensive approach. This is why the Black Church got tired of the fact that we do not have the answers for our own community, we do. What we do not have is public officials who are willing to spend the taxpayer money in a way that will solve this problem. If it was 500 white kids who were being slaughtered, even the broke state of Illinois would find the money to solve this problem.
The National Black Church Initiative has not offered a piece meal program but a comprehensive one and it will cost the state of Illinois $20,000,000 for the next 5 years. The president of the United State of America, Barack Hussein Obama has his hands on the resources that he can give to the State of Illinois to solve this problem but his Justice Department, his Health and Human Services and the Department of Education continues to fail the youth of Chicago and Black families because there fails to be any resources to this growing problem of black on black crime. Simply put, there seems to be no will and no appetite but this is not true for the National Black Church Initiative, we have the biggest will in the world and all the appetite, we just need the resources.
