Truce Between Rival Gang Factions Leads to Pullman Playground Built Amid a Newfound Peace
By Tessa Weinberg
A young boy in an oversized T-shirt that hung to his knees struggled to lift the shovel of mulch that was almost as tall as he was.
Around him, music blared on the muggy Friday in Pullman on the Far South Side as volunteers and community residents worked together to build a playground between two brick houses on South Corliss Avenue.
Orange slides were hoisted up and tiles painted to spell “Peace begins with a smile” as part of a collaboration among a variety of groups, including Chicago CRED, KaBOOM! and the Chicago White Sox.
But the playground’s foundation was really laid nearly a year ago when Sherman Scullark, a member of the Risky Road gang faction, rang Detective Vivian Williams’ doorbell.
Williams, who has lived in the neighborhood for 32 years — and has spent 23 of them working as a Chicago police officer — was shocked when Scullark came to her.
“I could see in his face that he needed to talk about something. And when I opened the door he said, 'Officer Williams, I'm just tired. I'm tired,’ ” Williams said.
Scullark was tired of the violence. The conflict between Risky Road and the Maniac Fours faction had been going on since Scullark was a young boy.
And it marred the community. Kids didn’t play outside. They knew not to go to the basketball courts or the gas station — both hotspots for shootings when rival gang members found each other across the 107th Street dividing line.
So Scullark asked Williams, who’s known as the neighborhood mom, to set up a meeting between the rival gangs. Williams agreed but needed approval from the district commander.
The next day, Williams got it. But Scullark beat her to it. He had already orchestrated a truce agreement.
He had approached his rivals on their block and let them know he wasn’t carrying a firearm. Then he told them how he felt. It turned out some of them felt the same.
They agreed to put down the guns, and the neighborhood has been more peaceful ever since.
“I said, 'You didn't even give me 24 hours?’ ” Williams said. “He said, ‘Now can you introduce me to Arne Duncan?’ ”
Duncan, the former education secretary under Barack Obama and former Chicago Public Schools CEO, is the driving force behind the organization Chicago Creating Real Economic Destiny, known as Chicago CRED.
Duncan, a managing partner of Chicago CRED and the Emerson Collective, believes the solution to Chicago’s gun violence doesn’t start with the police, but with the men doing the shooting.
Founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow, the Emerson Collective is a philanthropy that pursues various social justice initiatives in areas like immigration, education, the environment and more.
“No one's winning now. The police aren't winning. Guys in the street aren't winning,” Duncan said of the city’s shootings.
By supplying them with a job, pay, opportunities to earn their GED and emotional support, the organization aims to curb violence. Founded in 2016, the program serves about 100 men in the Roseland, North Lawndale, West Garfield Park and Englewood neighborhoods.
“We can't just arrest our way out of it. We can't incarcerate our way out of it. We have to give guys a pathway,” Duncan said.
Like Bryant King, a Pullman native who’s been involved with Chicago CRED since May. Taking a break from lifting bags of concrete, King described how the program has helped him realize his passion for landscaping. Now he’s working with the group to start his own business.
“You can change,” King said. “The violence can stop. And we're an example right now.”
But the program can’t shield everyone from violence. One CRED participant was shot and killed a few months ago, Duncan said. And another recently left the intensive care unit after he was shot multiple times and had a kidney removed, said Craig Nash, who was his life coach while he was in the program.
“You worry about the guys,” Nash said. “You hear something on the news (and think), ‘Is everybody OK?’ ”
But the violence was far from Pullman as Kimari Harrington, 9, pressed her hand covered in pink paint to a tile for the Pullman Peace Playground.
Harrington and her mother, Kim Richardson, are moving to the block from Auburn Gresham and feel like the playground, which was built using neighborhood kids’ designs, is perfect.
“When you’re a part of something, you don’t want to tear it down,” Richardson said.
Scullark and his crew have tried to be a part of the community in their own way. They used to pay people with money raised from illegal activities to clean up the local park or cut elders’ grass.
Now, through CRED, they’re getting paid to professionally take on the neighborhood’s landscaping.
“We're doing it the right way now,” Scullark said.
Article/Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-playground-in-pullman-20180809-story.html
