Youth activists' hopes riding on Tutu's message of peace

A planned visit to north Minneapolis this weekend from one of the world's most famous peacemakers, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has youth activists hoping he can jump-start a movement to take a stand against the community's problems.

North Minneapolis has a reputation as a "crime-ridden, drug-infested, you-name-the-negative, we've got it" neighborhood, community organizer Dave Ellis said.

"And young people know it. They know the message; they hear it every day," he said. "They see it in the paper; they see it on TV. And they know that that's not what north Minneapolis is about."

Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate best-known for his fight to overturn apartheid in South Africa, and his daughter Naomi will be in the Twin Cities for a "PeaceJam" conference put on by the local nonprofit "youthrive." The group works to bring young people and adults together to strengthen leadership and peace-building skills.

In addition to a lecture tonight, Tutu will speak at North High School, ride in a peace parade and talk to students about service-learning.

"The movement is to raise consciousness and say, 'Look, just because [the violence isn't] touching you yet, or at all, doesn't mean that it's all right for you to sit back and say I'm fine,'" said organizer 20-year-old Elijah James.

"If your community is hurting, then you're not fine. This is right in your back yard. Don't get too comfortable and get immune to the violence and the poverty and the problems. Everyone has the power, ultimately, to do something."

Decrease in violence

PeaceJam, an event put on internationally by groups such as youthrive, aims to introduce kids to Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

While PeaceJam's message is global, it has a particular resonance on the North Side.

"It's a community that's been distraught and really torn apart," said organizer 19-year-old Tracina Coward. "When you get immune to that violence, it's hard to say, 'My community is good, I can support my community.' This event will strike something in people and let them see that people can make a change."

Some of that change is already underway.

Violence on the North Side decreased during the past year, thanks in part to the Minneapolis Police Department assigning more patrol officers to the area and spending more than $1 million for surveillance cameras and sensors that pinpoint gunshot locations.

Coward, who has had three friends killed in recent years, said young people also deserve credit for the downturn in violent crime.

"I feel like we made a step up from 2006," she said, "and nobody's acknowledging it. Homicides went down because of the nonprofits and people saying, 'We want this to stop.'"

After the shooting of 19-year-old Marcus White in north Minneapolis in July 2006, Coward said, the community spoke out.

"We ... rallied," she said. "The cops drove right past us. We wanted them to hear what we're saying, and they drove right past us. We're doing something positive here, and nobody's recognizing that."

Ellis hopes Tutu's visit will change that.

"It has the ability to catalyze a movement, and that's what these young people are looking for. Their dream is to create a movement that will make north Minneapolis the place that they believe it should be," he said. "... All those young people you're afraid of, the young people you cross the street to get away from, they have hopes and aspirations, too."

Staff writer David Chanen contributed to this report. Emily Johns • 952-882-9056