CLEVELAND — Young people in Northeast Ohio and across the country are taking a stand against gun violence. Wednesday, hundreds of students at Cleveland’s Ginn Academy marked the Day of National Concern about Young People and Gun Violence by taking a pledge.
“I had a few close friends that recently passed away. It’s hurtful to see your friends in a casket. You just break down,” said Christopher Weems, a senior at Ginn Academy.
Weems is on track to be the first of his mother’s children to graduate high school. He plans to attend Central State University, where he hopes to play football.
“It’s a huge, big deal. My mom, she just cries. She’s filled with joy to see her baby boy make it, make it to the top,” he said.
He said fulfilling his goals and making his mother proud, as well as watching others fall victim to gun violence, keeps him motivated to stay out of trouble.
“That used to get on my nerves when I was a kid. But now I understand it, why my mom was on top of me. They kept me in sports, they kept me occupied,” Weems said. “I’m trying to finish school, do right, live my life right because I don’t want to go out the wrong way.”
Wednesday, Weems and his peers listened to mothers, coaches and community leaders talk about the effects of gun violence.
“We have to teach them. It’s the hardest thing to look down on children, young kids that have lost their life to gun violence,” said Ginn Academy Director and Glenville High School football coach Ted Ginn, Sr.
Ginn spoke to News 5 in August after one of his former football players, 16-year-old Devonte Johnson, was shot and killed across from Glenville High School. The coach said more needs to be done to support and positively influence young people on a regular basis.
“We have to do a better job of hugging and corralling our children and giving them what they need to survive," he said in August.
Cleveland’s homicide rate has already topped 100 so far in 2022.
Mothers who lost children to violence told the crowd of teenagers Wednesday to think about the consequences of their actions and the impact on their family and friends.
“As a mother of a murdered child, no mother should have to bury their child. It’s too difficult,” said Yvonne Pointer, a state leader for Voices of Black Mothers United (VBMU).
Before leading a pledge at the Ginn Academy assembly, she asked the teens to raise their hands if they knew anyone killed by gun violence. The majority of hands were raised.
“In order to get a harvest, a seed has to go into the ground. So I feel as if we planted seeds today,” Pointer said. “They may [take a while] – 10 years from now, 5 years from now, next week – before it dawns on them: ‘Oh I don’t have to use a gun for violence.’”
Students repeated back a four-point pledge:
- “I won’t bring a gun to school.”
- “I will never use a gun to settle a personal problem or dispute.”
- “I will use my influence with my friends to keep them from using guns to settle disputes.”
- “My individual choices and actions, when multiplied by those of young people throughout the country, will make a difference.”
They each signed and dated copies of the pledge, along with their grade and school.
More than 2,100 youth at Cleveland-area schools and community centers planned to take the pledge against gun violence on Wednesday; Pointer explained the assembly was part of a nationwide effort in at least 23 U.S. cities.
“We’re trying to get one million youth to say, ‘We will not use a gun for violence,’” she said. “We accomplished something just by coming, just by having them take the pledge, that it’s in their minds.”
She and Ginn acknowledged a pledge won’t create instant change, but they hope it will be a start.
Weems told News 5 that he hopes his peers learn from the tragedy they see around them.
“You have the thoughts: like it would be cool at the moment,” he said. “But once you see that, like it’s in front of your face, you’ll be like, ‘Man I don’t want to go down that path. I want to get my life together.’ It makes you want to switch your life around.”
You can learn more about the pledge and the Day of National Concern by clicking on this link.
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