One year after more than 400 people marched to have police removed from schools, Isiah ThoughtPoet Veney stood at a busy intersection in West Englewood and addressed a crowd holding signs saying “People Power PEACEWALK” and “Mutual Aid.”

       “When you talk about (communities like) Englewood,” said Veney, an activist and photographer, “there’s a certain beauty that only people who live in those communities can relate to.”

       Particularly, he said, in terms of how residents help each other by filling in the gaps in hygiene, food and other resources. “People that live in Englewood understand that it’s extremely hard to survive.”

       Veney, in collaboration with GoodKidsMadCity, the Chicago Teachers Union, and other groups, organized Sunday’s peace walk and aid giveaway to shift what he characterized as a negative image of Englewood, which has gotten worse over the past couple of weeks after the shooting of Chicago police Officer Ella French, who was killed while conducting a traffic stop in West Englewood on Aug. 7.

       According to Omari Moore, executive director of NeighborScapes, a nonprofit that works to create affordable housing, Englewood is often presented in news reports as someplace “dark and violent,” ignoring that it is also “a neighborhood full of families.”

       Veney, who also works for NeighborScapes, said he wanted to highlight that increasing funds for the police department is not the solution, inviting other activists to speak at the event, including Miracle Boyd, an organizer who had her teeth knocked out by a police officer at a protest last year.

       “Today we are here to bring peace to our community once again,” said Boyd. “We are asking that (Chicago Mayor) Lori Lightfoot disinvest 2% of CPD’s budget” to fund wraparound services, mental health, and transformative justice in schools.

       Speakers took turns with the megaphone, some reading poems or singing, including óscar Sánchez, co-founder of the Southeast Youth Alliance who took part in a 30-day hunger strike against the construction of a scrap shredder on the Southeast Side in February.

       Another speaker, Eva Maria Lewis, founder of anti-gun violence nonprofit The Free Root Operation, led people in song and stressed the importance of imagination and remembering “how important it is to imagine a community that isn’t plagued by trauma and grief,” said Lewis.

       The event included a walk down South Ashland Avenue to 59th Street, where participants stopped outside a shuttered CVS pharmacy. Traffic and a couple of police cars tailed those walking.

       Outside the pharmacy, organizers set up tables where they gave away items ranging from water and canned food to toothpaste, diapers and hand sanitizer.

       Veney, who was raised in the Chatham and Burnside neighborhoods, noted that people in the area used to rely on the pharmacy for basics, but it’s been closed for around 2？ years.

       Demonstrators walk on South Ashland Ave during the #PeoplePower Peace Walk in the West Englewood neighborhood on Aug. 22, 2021. (Vashon Jordan Jr. / Chicago Tribune)

       There’s no nutrition here, he said, adding that the Family Dollar opposite had some things but not enough. “If you don’t got a car, you’re not gonna be able to get the nutrition you need.”

       Also present were those working for the campaign #FreeMohawk, an effort to get rapper Jeremey “Mohawk” Johnson,released from jail.

       Johnson was arrested last August at a protest to defund the police that saw violent clashes between demonstrators and the police, and is now on house arrest after being charged with aggravated battery of a peace officer for allegedly hitting a police officer with a skateboard.

       “We will rally” until Johnson is free, said Jonathan Wilson, one of the campaign’s organizers who also said that there is “no substantial evidence” that Johnson committed the crime. Wilson said he used to teach at West Englewood’s now closed Harper High School, a school mentioned by the speakers as an example of disinvestment.

       “The only thing that changes these situations is public pressure,” said Wilson. “They (city officials) are trying to play a waiting game.”

       There are plans for the peace walk to become a yearly event, according to NeighborScapes’ Moore.

       Next year, Moore said he hopes for “more turnout, more organizations represented,” and most importantly, more children and young people.

       Residents at peace walk reject negative image of Englewood: ‘Today we are here to bring peace to our community once again’

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