MINNEAPOLIS — Shiloh Temple hosted its inaugural Juneteenth Stop the Violence Barbeque event on Friday. The building's parking lot was packed with thousands of people, not just celebrating the upcoming holiday but also participating in activities that fortify the community.
Tommy McBrayer, CEO of Don't Shoot Guns, Shoot Hoops, attended the event as well. McBrayer's organization brings basketball to events like Shiloh's, keeping youth engaged.
"All the gun violence going on, the violence, seeing a decrease in these youth-- social and emotional skills so creating this avenue, so they can almost forget about the trauma tune into some music, be competitive, win some trophies, that's all that's about," McBrayer said.
What the young people may not have known at the event, is that the adults are invested in their growth.
"[We] let the community know we as a whole-- and as a people we do care about our community, and we love servicing our community," Zack Brown said.
"We need our police, we need our law enforcement, and there has to be accountability in place for us all to be safe," Assistant Pastor Andre Dukes said. "So we are all responsible for each other as a community and we see the police as a part of that."
"It takes all of us to prevent violence," emphasized Pastor Jalilia Abdul-Brown.
She added that with this morning's announcement about the Minneapolis Police Department's consent decree, she said she felt like some people might be ready for some forward movement.
"That consent decree will help to hold Minneapolis police officers responsible," Abdul-Brown said. "I believe a lot of them we have now are ready to move forward. We're ready to move forward in the best possible way. You see a lot of law enforcement out here today, I believe law enforcement is ready to treat the community like humanity."
Just as time is crucial to healing, so is joy.
"Juneteenth for me is about Black joy, Black love, spreading love throughout the community," Abdul-Brown said. "We really want to lift up North Minneapolis and our community-- Minneapolis, in general, is not as bad as people say, we want you to come on back, Minneapolis is on a rebound."
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