Gun Violence Awareness Month: A Time to Confront the Crisis

June is Gun Violence Awareness Month, but for many Black communities, the violence doesn’t wait for a calendar. Gun violence has become a daily crisis, a public health epidemic claiming the lives of thousands of young people each year. It’s a disease plaguing our neighborhoods, leaving behind grief, trauma, and unanswered questions.

This is not just about bullets. It is about broken systems.

Gun Violence Awareness Proclamation

When we talk about stopping the violence, we must broaden the conversation. Gun violence is fueled by a web of concentrated poverty, mass incarceration, lack of healthcare, underfunded schools, unaffordable housing, community trauma, unemployment, and disinvestment in Black neighborhoods and businesses. These are not separate issues. They are

all forms of violence.

At the Community Empowerment Association (CEA), we see this crisis up close. Four years ago, the grandson of CEA’s CEO, Brother Rashad Byrdsong, was murdered at age 15. His death is one of many that remain unsolved, another cold case in a long list of lives lost without justice.

But our response must go beyond mourning. We must organize, build, and heal.

It’s time for a renewed community commitment to:

• Rites of passage and youth development programs

• Mental health and trauma recovery services

• Job training, mentorship, and economic opportunity

• Affordable housing, early childhood education, and safe spaces

• Community-based violence intervention strategies

CEA is calling for a Community-Wide Urban Violence Summit, bringing together families, youth, educators, organizers, faith leaders, and public officials to develop real, sustainable solutions.

Gun violence is not just a safety issue. It is a mental health issue, a justice issue, a human rights issue. And until we treat it as such, the cycle will continue.

Let Gun Violence Awareness Month be more than a moment! Let it be a movement. The time to act is now!