- Coming up on "American Black Journal," our black church in Detroit series examines the spiritual response to gun violence in our city.

We're gonna talk about the importance of churches collaborating on a solution.

Plus, we'll look at the role of the church in teaching young people about how to resolve conflict in a non-violent manner.

Don't go anywhere.

"American Black Journal" starts right now.

- [Narrator] From Delta faucets to bear paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia and Esso Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Narrator] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at DTEfoundation.com.

- [Narrator] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm Stephen Henderson.

Today, we're continuing our series on the black church in Detroit, which is produced in partnership with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History.

The recent shooting of 21 people at a Detroit block party prompted us to examine the spiritual response to gun violence.

How can churches work together to address the issue?

I pose that question and more to my guests, both of whom have been active in this space for a really long time.

Here's my conversation with Pastor Barry Randolph from Church of the Messiah and Reverend Ralph Godbee Jr. of Triumph Church.

Pastor Barry Randolph, Reverend Ralph Godbee, welcome to American Black Journal.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- Yeah, it's unfortunate that we're talking about this subject in light of the news a few weeks ago here in Detroit.

An awful lot of people shot during, I guess, a fight at a block party over on the east side.

I'm gonna start with you, Pastor Barry.

You had a Stop the Violence event recently here in Detroit.

I'm curious about the reaction at your event to what had just happened about a week before and kind of what comes out of that event in terms of next steps, the things that people think we ought to be doing.

- Yeah, we just celebrated our 17th annual Silence, Violence March and Rally, which is now a statewide event working on eradicating gun violence as we know it, bringing together the community groups, political leaders, law enforcement, all together, the CBI groups working on this issue.

Of course, everybody was shocked.

As a matter of fact, when I got word to come down to the press conference, I literally fell to my knees because I originally got a text.

It was on a Sunday, so everybody knew that ministers are in church.

And I didn't believe the number because it said 21.

And I'm like, "This can't be 21 people."

And I called the police captain who had called me and she let me know that it was literally 21 people.

And it was just unbelievable.

Immediately went into prayer.

A lot of people were in disbelief, but it just kind of let us know that we gotta continue to organize and continue to work and continue to work with communities and neighborhoods that we have to be able to do something.

You have to remember this is a uniquely American problem.

We have 400 million guns and 330 million Americans.

We're gonna have a problem unless we began to do something about gun violence.

So we have to do something, but everybody jumped into action.

So there's a new thing that we're gonna be doing called the Orange Mile where we're literally gonna teach people how to work within one square mile of their church, community organization, block club, to work on building community and neighborhood.

- That's a super interesting idea.

And I wanna come back to that a little later.

Reverend Godbee, I love having you here for this conversation because you're not just a pastor, but you were the chief of police here in the city of Detroit.

So you have seen this from both sides.

- Yes, I have.

- I wanna get your reaction to what we saw a few weeks ago, what you think it means about violence in the city and the kind of things that we deal with, but then give me the spiritual side of it as well, what you hear and feel from the folks in your church.

- You know, Stephen, first of all, thank you for having me, Pastor Randolph.

Thank you so much for your advocacy on the ground.

You are an amazing, amazing community asset and we need more pastors like you to step up and to step into the gap.

But the irony is not lost on me, Stephen, when I got news that this happened, I was literally in Israel, a country that is at war and significantly in the midst of a war.

And to hear that on the United States side of the Atlantic Ocean, that in my home city, 21 people were shot at a block party.

And I'm literally in a war zone and I feel very comfortable.

That is a sad state of mind as to where the United States of America is relative to its infatuation with guns and its inability to substantively put in place laws that do not infringe upon your second amendment right.

But we have to stop worshiping the second amendment as if it's sacrosanct and to question it is to somehow question God.

The constitution is our guiding principle, but we've made an idol out of it.

And idolatry in the sight of God is something that he is not pleased with at all.

And I think as a country, we are suffering the repercussions of idolizing the constitution, and particularly the second amendment to the extent to where we're not utilizing common sense.

And Stephen, as you well know, as a very well-established award-winning journalist during the time that the United States was under a assault weapons ban, these types of incidents had gone down significantly.

There's white paper research to support this.

It's not about feeling, it's not about political bent.

These are facts, yet we cannot make our way back to a common sense, a gun conversation, even in light of the fact that the Republican nominee for president of the United States was a hair's breath away from being a memory as a result of an AR-15, an assault weapon, a weapon that is designed for war, yet we still are not substantially moving the conversation toward common sense.

And just forget the law.

And I say that as a former cop, but just from a moral standpoint, how can we continue to watch the slaughter of innocence and under the banner of Christianity and Christian nationalism, which that's a whole different conversation.

I'm not gonna go there.

But even under that banner, how people of goodwill can't come together and say, we've gotta do something that's morally right for the people of this country.

Gunshot wounds are the leading cause of death of young people in America.

That is incomprehensible, that this is the conversation that we're having in 2024 and supposedly the most advanced democracy, a democratic experiment in world history.

So Stephen, I think we have to really swallow hard.

We've gotta look at who we're electing to public office, regardless of whether Republican, Democrat, I'm not here to advocate that.

But we've gotta start to identify people that with a common sense approach, closing the loophole at gun shows.

These things are just things that 95% of Americans regardless of political party agree with.

Yet we still have this small group of legislators that are beholden to the NRA and not to the NRA members, but to the NRA organization.

- Leadership.

- That are still, the leadership that is still driving our politics and is to the detriment and to the death of Americans.

So I didn't mean to pontificate that long.

- No, no, it's all really great.

And of course, I mean, as a former police chief, you saw this all really, really closely up front.

Pastor Barry, I wanna come back to you and talk about young people and the effect of this on our young people, but also what the response is when something like this happens in our city among young people.

I know how much work you do with young people, not just in your church, but just in that community and how much outreach you have made to try to welcome them into that church community.

I'm really curious about how they manage all of this.

- No, that's a great question.

And I appreciate everything that Reverend Godbee said, which was just incredible.

The young people too are tired.

They're a little bit disappointed because they cannot understand why adults cannot figure this out.

They're angry.

And just like Reverend Godbee said, the leading cause of death of children in the United States of America is guns, are leading cause of death, not illness, not car accidents, something 100% totally preventable.

Nelson Mandela said something so powerful when he said, "You can judge a country by the way it treats its children."

The leading cause of death of children in America is guns.

So what does that say about us as a country?

But young people are tired and they are fed up.

And one of the things that I know that's gonna be coming out of what we're gonna be creating with the Orange Mile, I met with a group of young people and for Neighborhoods Day, which is gonna be August 3rd, we're gonna have a couple of hundred young people here and they're gonna launch a movement called the Peacemakers.

It is out of the church.

The Bible say, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God."

Key word being peacemakers.

Now peace has to be made.

You have to make it.

It's not a given.

And a lot of young people are being in situations in communities, neighborhoods and families where violence is common and they're tired.

So they feel as though they have to do something too.

So we're going to have that event at 11 o'clock at Church of the Messiah on August 3rd where they're going to put up their initiative and their plans saying, "We're going to have to learn how to make peace.

And we can't totally trust adults because we just cannot believe that every year this seems to get worse."

And they wanna be able to see something done.

As you know, the majority of our congregation, 60% of it is African-American males under the age of 30.

So I'm the pastor of Ray, Ray and Pookie for the most part.

And these are incredible young people who really do wanna make a difference.

How do we gather the churches along with law enforcement, along with the schools, the business leaders, block clubs?

How do we go back to the time of old, of the village, the village mentality?

We're talking about the future.

A lot of this we had down in the past.

Everybody say, you know, when I was a kid, I was raised in a village and we need that village mentality.

So part of that is gonna be bringing that back and giving ourselves permission to hold each other accountable towards working towards the future.

That's what we're working on.

- Yeah, so I wanna spend some time talking about how we manage this from a community standpoint and a community kind of policing standpoint.

I do wanna start with Reverend Godbee, your observations about what community policing should look like, what it does look like in Detroit and maybe how it's different now than it was when you were chief.

I mean, when this happened a few weeks ago, I guess I was caught off guard by it.

I mean, I do feel like we're doing better with that community end of policing, but this suggested that maybe we're missing something.

- You know, Stephen, I think you raise a very astute point as to how we've progressed in policing.

First of all, I wanna give kudos to Chief James White.

He is, you know, a lot of people don't know his formative years in the police department.

He was a sergeant over community relations at the sixth precinct.

And that's where he really made a huge difference and impact in police community relations.

So that's kind of inbred in him as to his approach.

And I'm very proud of the CBI efforts as well.

You know, Force Detroit, I say with a lot of pride, my daughter, who was a teenager when we were working on some of these foundational pieces, she now works with Leah Harvey Quinn in that field.

And they have been very successful.

Detroit 300 was a group that, you know, I'm blessed to have kind of taken to the community.

But those are the type of efforts that we have to really build to scale because the early results with Force Detroit and CBI in the area that they have been very intentional, they have really made an impact on reducing violent crime because there has to be a multi-tiered approach.

First of all, prevention, you know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

So to the extent where we can engage in prevention activities.

The second is intervention.

We know that there are young people that are exposed to environments that make them ripe to fall into the cycle of violence.

So you have to have meaningful intervention before it even gets there.

And that works with the school system, Detroit Public Schools, Dr. Vitti, in all Detroit schools, charter or public, you have to have meaningful interventions for young people from a mental health standpoint, understanding procedural justice, understanding those type of disciplines that help to intervene before you even get to that explosive point.

Because we lost two years of instruction with our children where they were locked in from a pandemic, which nobody could have predicted, but the mental health of our community, young and old is significantly damaged.

And Stephen, we have not substantively really addressed that in a performative way to where we're identifying, recognizing, and helping to meet those mental health outcomes that we're dealing with now that are resulting in some very explosive behavior in all parts of society.

Our patience is just gone.

And so to that extent, I really would like to hear from political leadership, mayor, governor, county executive, and people of that, along with the private sector and corporate community, how do we holistically start to address the mental health needs of our young people particularly?

Because they just don't have the coping skills and the mature development of their frontal lobe to deal with some very real adult problems that were forced upon them.

And forced upon, adults are having a hard time with it.

So how much more are young people dealing with it in that way?

So to me, from my perch, I think that's the missing piece that if we don't address it, it only gets exacerbated over time.

So we really need to start to figure out how do we triage?

How do we start to fold into our church experience?

The church, and I think, again, Pastor Randolph is a cutting edge pastor.

He's boots on the ground.

Pastor Kinloch, we reach people that people like, "Oh my God, they go to your church?"

Yeah, we believe in the whosoever will, let 'em come.

But once they get there, we're not trying to modify behavior, we're trying to change their heart.

If you reach their heart, the behavior will change.

But in a lot of instances, we do it backwards.

We're trying to modify the behavior without really touching the underlying causes.

So I don't wanna get too Freudian, but I do think that's a missing part of the conversation.

- Sure, sure.

So Pastor Randolph, I want you to talk a little more about this Orange Zone idea, working where you live, right?

Working in proximity to your community, as close in as possible to make a difference.

I just think that's such a key part of the perspective we need about how to deal with this.

Each of us has gotta do what we can, where we can.

- Yeah, so the Orange Mile is just basically looking at where your organization is, like Church of the Messiah.

We're just looking at one square mile from where the church is, and we're looking at all of our assets.

And in our community, which is called Island View, we have a ton of assets.

It's not just Church of the Messiah, you got the Bog Center, you got Genesis Hope, you got Field Street Block Club, you got Shallow Boy Village, you got MAP Development, you got so many community organizations.

We adopted the school that's near us, and we're all working together.

But also too, there's more than 10 churches within this one square mile.

We talk about a lack of community centers, but yet still in a lot of our churches, we have banquet halls, kitchens, gymnasiums, classrooms.

And we've been asking preachers to do an asset assessment of their congregation.

We have people in the skilled trades.

We have people who are into mental health, the medical, educators.

We have people who are entrepreneurs.

If we would take that and teach our people to also not just tie it to our money, but if you can tie it to your talent, back to your community neighborhood within that one square mile, what could we do with those resources?

And just like for instance, if you have a church like Church of the Messiah, which have a gymnasium in the church down the street, plus don't, but they have a youth program and then they use our gymnasium or they use our commercial kitchen or they use our banquet hall, or we may use a facility that they have and we have to use each other's resources.

So like when we did an asset assessment at Church of Messiah, I didn't know we had eight social workers.

I didn't know it was eight social workers here.

Two medical doctors, couple nurses, and of course entrepreneurs is what we're kind of known for.

So we're like, we have to give this back to the community.

And then we have to teach the most vulnerable in our community and neighborhood.

We have to teach them now how to be citizens of that community.

And then don't forget our older people, our older generation, those who know how to cook, who know how to sew, who know how to do community gardens.

We have all of these resources that we need to take the time out to be able to know each other.

So within this one square mile, you also gotta know what the police precinct are.

You have to know who all of your governmental leaders are.

You have to know the businesses that's there.

You gotta get involved in the school system.

How do I know this possible?

'Cause we already did it.

So we were kind of the guinea pigs for it to be able to say, it is possible to be able to help organize your community and neighborhood.

This is us putting the neighbor back into the hood.

This is also us being able to be that village that a lot of older people grew up with, being responsible for the people at least within that one square mile.

Also orange is the color of gun violence.

So that's why we chose the color orange because we want these violent free zones.

We're also incorporating code 22 by Paso Vela.

Remembering the 22nd of every month is a day of peace and healing.

Taking that and adding that to it, making sure we have the ability and resources to pull that off.

Everything it is we need, we already have.

It's kind of like the wizard of Oz.

We got the heart, the courage, and the brain.

We need to click our heels and find out we have the ability to go home.

We don't need to run from the witch.

The wizard is basically non-existent, but we don't need to get to the end of our journey to figure out the key is us.

So we're going to work with us.

And for the church, the reason why on purpose I'm gonna work with the churches, we have a mandate.

The scripture tells us the kingdom of heaven is not mere words, it's a demonstration of power.

And unity is looking for that power.

And you're looking for it from a spiritual standpoint, but also too from a physical standpoint.

Spirit became human and dwelt among us.

Jesus, 12 men with attention deficit disorder and changed the world.

From the Christian perspective, we believe a virgin had a baby.

We profess the impossible, then we need to do it and make it happen.

Let's go.

- Yeah.

- I love that guy.

- Deeds, not words, right?

- Absolutely.

- All right, we're out of time, but I really, really appreciate both of you being here to help spread the word about what we need to do to make this a safer place.

Reverend Ralph Godbee, Pastor Barry Randolph, always great to see you.

Thanks for being here.

- Likewise.

Thank you, Stephen.

- Thank you guys.

- Finally today, we wanna remember a man who was a major contributor to Detroit's Motown Sound.

Duke Fakir was the last surviving original member of the Four Tops.

He passed away on July 22nd at the age of 88.

Fakir was a lifelong Detroit resident.

He toured with the group until the end of last year, marking a 70-year music career in which he kept the Four Tops legacy very much alive.

We found a clip of Fakir and the other members of the group when they appeared on "Detroit Black Journal" back in 1987.

(gentle music) ♪ That is just another rainy night affair ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Love has gone away ♪ ♪ Neither one of us cares anymore ♪ ♪ About the other ♪ ♪ We don't care ♪ - Our condolences to Duke Fakir's family and friends.

He was truly a class act and, of course, a music legend.

That's gonna do it for us this week.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org, and you can connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care, and we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Announcer] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Narrator] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.

(gentle music)