Hundreds rally for ‘302 Guns Down’ theme of peace

WILMINGTON Hundreds turned out Sunday to share a message of peace, calling for an end to deadly violence in the city.

More than 300 people gathered at Judy Johnson Park at Second and Clayton streets in the first hours of the “302 Guns Down Benefit & Concert.”

Hundreds more were expected for the separately planned “March for a Culture of Peace,” a second-annual event with step-off at 3:30 p.m. at Cool Spring Park for a walk through West Center City.

“Today, we put down our guns and let our ripple effect go throughout the city,” emcee Iz Balleto told the crowd at the earlier event, which began at noon and runs to 5 p.m.

Event organizer Michaelena DeJesus, who lives across from Judy Johnson Park, said, “Eventually, we want this to be a national day of peace.”

The name, “302 Guns Down,” was coined by a student at Parkway Academy in Wilmington, she said. Although she is not part of that group, she said, she partnered with the academy to present the peace program.

Although the park event and “March for a Culture of Peace” were separately planned, she said, “next year, we’ll be together.”

Mayor Dennis P. Williams said he was “so impressed” by DeJesus, her enthusiasm and her plans for the event, he decided the city would co-sponsor the event and waive all fees instead of just providing a grant.

“It’s a good idea,” Williams said. “I wish we had 1,000 people like her.”

Kids filled two bounce houses, while others climbed into a city fire truck and a happy line formed for face-painting. Information areas included tables for the Job Corps, Delaware Air National Guard, Westside Family Healthcare, Cease Violence Wilmington and other groups and businesses giving out a variety of freebies, including haircuts.

Ronald J. Brown, supervisor and hospital responder for nonprofit Cease Violence Wilmington, stood by one park gate with a member of the Guardian Angels group in a trademark red beret. Its wearer, Dwight Snead of Wilmington’s Browntown neighborhood, said he is one of the group’s new recruits in the city.

Both smiled as they looked out over the crowd, with Brown saying, “It’s a great event.”

On a stage, performers ranged from the youth dance group Divine Divas to adult rappers, with DJ Butta Fingaz also getting the crowd going with music such as Silentó’s summer’s sizzler, “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae).”

At a cookout corner, the city’s Parks and Recreation team served up free lunches of hamburgers, hot dogs, chips and beverages, with the “Dream Team” of Bendall Barnes and Maurice Hollis Sr. working the grill.

“It’s an honor and privilege to be of service,” Hollis said.

Although the tone of the gathering was upbeat, the heartbreak caused by the violence the event aimed to reduce was present as well.

“Anything like this is good for the kids,” said Tondra Mangrum, whose face betrayed her mourning. Her son Jamar Kilgoe, 30, of Wilmington, was shot to death Feb. 16 at the Rose Hill Community Center near New Castle.

Since his unsolved killing, she said, have been the murders of her nephew, Raekwon Mangrum, 19, of Wilmington, repeatedly shot April 4 in the 200 block of N. Monroe St., and her son’s best friend James Darryl Rogers, 29, killed July 23 in his Fourth Street home.

Mangrum’s family also attended, with one of his brothers, 14-year-old Donald Mangrum, carrying a giant R covered with his photos.

“I feel like the city failed me,” said Raekwon’s mother, Markita Mangrum. “I just came to show my face.” She, her son’s stepmother Tamika Mangrum, and his brothers, also including Davon Lloyd, 7 and Derris Lloyd, 10, all wore memorial T-shirts – as did Tondra Mangrum.

Although arrests have been made in the shootings of Mangrum and Rogers, Kilgoe’s mother said she waits every day for news in his unsolved killing.

Elsewhere in the park sat Lynette Williams, who has been waiting even longer. Her brother Vaughn Williams, was found shot to death in his car at Third and Madison streets on March 1, 1998.

Williams sat quietly holding signs about his unsolved killing and three others in the city, one of them the year before her brother’s.

She admits she has grown tired of waiting and is heartbroken not only by her brother’s absence but also by the gun violence in the city costing so many more young lives in recent years.

With the city apparently unable to control the problem, Lynette Williams said, “It’s time for them to do something, time for Washington, D.C., to come up here.”

The most important question people should ask themselves and each other about every killing in the city – solved and unsolved – is a simple one, she said: “What if it was your child?”

Contact robin brown at (302) 324-2856 or rbrown@delawareonline.com. Find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @rbrowndelaware.