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Released November 24,
2006
I find it
disquieting listening to the Philadelphia,
PA television evening news
because I expect the murder report will once again confirm that the murder rate
is running better than one murder per day. People losing family members to
gangs' violence may be seen in street demonstrations calling for a stop to the
daily carnage or openly lamenting the senseless murder of their love ones.
These media scenes make it difficult not to conclude that neighborhood despair
has gained mainstream legitimacy where today America has accepted defeat in the
war on drugs and now we simply allow drug-infested neighborhoods to secede to
the Twenty First Century drug overlords.
At the November 2006 annual
meeting of The Trotter Group (African American columnists) at Stanford
University and sponsored by the Knight Foundation, I was pleasantly surprised
to hear a speaker offering hope that young people growing up in drug-infested
neighborhoods did not have to be written off as wards of the criminal justice
system. African American Dr. Joseph
Marshall contended that murders were due to a violence virus. He offered a skit
to demonstrate how easy it is for this violence virus to spread.
Marshall posed a scene with a Trotter Group
member where he whispered in the ear of the Trotter Group subject a need for
family, respect, carrying a gun for protection, and so on. It was bone chilling
to recognize that it took about minute for this violence virus to be exchanged
between two people. Marshall
left the impression that exorcising this violence virus is his life’s mission.
Marshall offered a brief history brochure of
the Omega Boys Club / Street Soldiers. “The Omega Boys Club is a nationally recognized youth development and
violence prevention program, providing services to youth (male and female) and
educators throughout the Bay Area and around the country. It was founded in
1987, by a middle school teacher and administrator (Dr. Joseph Marshall) and a
counselor (Jack Jacqua), who were frustrated by the
growing number of their brightest students who were not going to college, but
who were instead ending up dead or in prison as a result of the violence that
was consuming their communities. Over the past 19 years the Omega Boys
Club/Street Soldiers has tested and refined a violence prevention/ intervention
methodology that both reduces violence and improves academic performance. In
2005, Omega achieved a milestone when it produced its 100th college graduate.”
“Today the Omega Boys
Club provides direct and indirect services nationwide through its various
programs-the Omega Leadership Academy, the Omega Training Institute, Street Soldiers Communications (radio,
television, magazine), and the Street Soldiers National Consortium. Omega also
provides scholarship assistance to those club members who complete its
Leadership Academy (115 college graduates to date).”
As I listened to Marshall speak about
educating inner city youth that might be written off, it became clear to me
that he may be on the right track for it is common knowledge that the more
education a person gets lesser her or his chance is of going to prison. Marshall further revealed
that they have 55 Omega students attending college in the 2006-07school year.
Although the name says Omega Boys Club, the percentage of boys and girls served
is 60/40. Average GPA (grade point average) is 2.78. The college completion
rate is 70 percent. Students attended 32 different colleges in the 2005-06
school year.
Marshall appears to see himself as the civil
rights leader for today’s neighborhoods in crisis. He wants to spread his
gospel across the nation. Marshall has gained recognition in the San Francisco
Bay Area and some areas across the nation: 2006 Community Leadership Award from
the San Francisco Foundation; 2006 Jefferson Award for public service; 2003
Human Rights Leadership Award from the Harvard Club of San Francisco; 2003
Edward J Griffin Educators Award from the University of San
Francisco; and 2001 Use Your Lift Award from Oprah Winfrey's Angel Network. He
received a 2003 Honorary Doctorate from Morehouse College.
As I ponder Marshall’s assertion on helping to reduced violence and
increase education in the hood, I find it imperative that he be given an opportunity
to see how well his philosophy can turn around America’s inner city killing
fields. Furthermore, the 70 percent Omega Boys Club college student graduation
rate is a lesson in graduation success that many mainstream colleges might want
to emulate for the national college graduation average is 34 percent in four
years and only 56 percent in six years.
Is Marshall America’s
newest human rights leader who will help scared inner city residents reclaim
their neighborhoods from the grip of today’s overlord drug dealers who readily
exploit murder as their weapon of choice in suppressing the masses?
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