Mayor Kip Holden says Baton Rouge needs a “community approach” to crime, which includes government, the private sector and religious institutions.
“The church can’t just be a church that you go to on whatever day of the week you worship,” he says. “The church is going to have to come outside and get into the community after the worship service is over. And there are a lot of ministers willing to do that.”
The Rev. Donald Hunter is one of those ministers.
The owner of Evaluative and Development Services on Convention Street also is pastor of New Beginnings Baptist Church in Zion City, and along with several partner churches, leads the Zion City Revitalization Project, which seeks to turn around one of Baton Rouge’s most infamous neighborhoods. Hunter credits the mayor for inspiring the effort, which now is hoping for an infusion of money from the federal government.
“I think we’ve been able to stem the tide significantly,” he says, referring to the violence that by his estimate claimed about three lives per year in this small subdivision north of Airline Highway and east of Plank Road. Theft and assault also are less frequent, although there was a shooting a few weeks before this early August interview, and the drug trade remains active, even in broad daylight, he says.
“You see, they’re moving a little bit now,” Hunter says, referring to several young men standing near the intersection of Apperson and Cadillac streets. “This is a hot spot.”
In conversation, Hunter returns again and again to the breakdown of the black family as a root cause of community violence.
“There are far more children than you would imagine in these houses. Many of them are elementary-school age,” he says. The earlier you try to save a child from taking the wrong path, the better chance you have, he explains.
So by the time a child reaches his mid-teens, is it too late?
“It’s never too late. I believe that as a Baptist preacher. But it becomes increasingly difficult,” he says.
As Hunter speaks, a young man, maybe 15 years old, walks by in the opposite direction while pushing a stroller. He’s wearing an extra-large, blood-red T-shirt and baggy black jean shorts.
“What you say, man?” Hunter calls out. The young man doesn’t make eye contact. “But what looks good to me is, he’s pushing a child that has a very strong resemblance to him. It looks like he might be the father.”
Many of the lots he’s walking by are cut by revitalization project volunteers. On a practical level, trimming weeds that would otherwise be five or six feet tall eliminates potential hiding places; hopefully it also helps instill a certain pride of place, a sense that someone cares about Zion City. Project efforts have also included GED classes, job fairs and [until the money ran out] a drug-treatment program.
“They’re in there every evening, smoking that crack right in the vicinity of a church,” Hunter says, pointing to a disheveled house mere yards away from New Beginnings. “At night, it glows up every time they hit that pipe.” He expects the house will be demolished at some point to make way for the Green Light Plan widening of Ford Street, which also should bring greater visibility to his area.
Hunter says Police Chief Jeff LeDuff has been supportive of his efforts, and says the police respond quickly when needed, although residents aren’t always willing to call. Collaboration with law enforcement is one of the elements of the grant application the YWCA has submitted on the project’s behalf to the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Weed and Seed” program. The grant seeks $175,000 in federal money, which would be leveraged to sustain the program in the long term. Hunter expects a decision in September.
Click here to return to the cover story, “The impact of crime.”
