Plus 2

Two more Tent Cities pop up

By John Geluardi
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Two more Tent Cities have sprung up in Richmond, adding to the momentum for a truce in the chronic violence that has plagued the city for years.

The new inner-city outposts went up Monday evening in John F. Kennedy Park at 41st Street and Cutting Boulevard, and in Martin Luther King Memorial Park at 13th Street and Virginia Avenue. Two more Tent Cities are planned -- one in Parchester Village and another somewhere in the southside, said the Rev. Andre Shumake, among the leaders of the effort to reclaim the streets from violence.

That would make a total of six encampments, including the two original Tent Cities: one in the Iron Triangle that was erected Sept. 24 and another in North Richmond's Shields-Reid Park that began the next day.

The Kennedy Park Tent City in the Park Plaza neighborhood is already fully functional, with a large, military-style tent, a humming generator, smoker grill and 50-gallon drum that serves as wood-burning space heater.

Park Plaza resident Robert O. Brown, who had been a fixture at the original Tent City at Fourth Street and Macdonald Avenue and is director of the Teens Incentive Project, led the effort to set up the Kennedy Park outpost, across the street from Kennedy High School.

"Since we began setting up, the Park Plaza neighbors have been coming by with folding chairs, tarpaulins, coffee and pastries," Brown said Wednesday, pointing to two large, pink pastry boxes sitting on a folding table. "The Tent Cities have had a very powerful effect on people, and I'm all in for them. Whatever I can do."

The Iron Triangle and North Richmond sites have had a calming effect in areas typically prone to drug dealing, prostitution and violence. The Kennedy Park Tent City has had a similar effect, though the neighborhood is usually pretty quiet by comparison.

"In these Tent Cities, we're visible," Brown said. "That's what makes the difference. We're the parents and grandparents of these kids who are causing the problems, and they can't act the way they do when we're at post. They have to take a hiatus."

The Tent Cities' goal is to unify the city's southside, central and North Richmond neighborhoods, which are embroiled in long-standing feuds.

A march originating from the various Tent City locations is tentatively planned for Nov. 4. The various streams of marchers will converge at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium, where a seven-point plan to reach zero homicides will be presented, Shumake said.

When the Rev. Charles Newsome, president of the NAACP, and other organizers set up the first Tent City in a parking lot in the heart of the Iron Triangle, it instantly touched a chord in a large cross section of the Richmond community. Organizers had not yet figured out how to set up their one tent when people began arriving with food, cooking equipment, blankets and good will.

"It reminds people of the sit-ins during the 1950s and 1960s," Newsome said. "But instead of trying to gain access to public facilities, we are asking for truce. We want our children to live."

Contact John Geluardi at 510-262-2787 or jgeluardi@cctimes.com.

FOR INFORMATION

Richmond Improvement Association: 510-860-3681

Teens Incentive Program: www.4atip.org or 510-706-3123