Orange Mound looking for answers within the community

Memphis Mayor Paul Young has formed a comprehensive task force to attack the “chaos.”

By Tony Jones

MEMPHIS, TN — Orange Mound State Representative G.A. Hardaway (D93) says the Black community must either “Vote or Die,” to fight back against the violent crime eating up our neighborhoods.

Hardaway issued the warning in a follow up call to the Tennessee Tribune concerning the “emergency” town hall meeting he spearheaded this past Saturday (February 10) at the Mt. Pisgah CME Church to express outrage at the latest murder shocking Orange Mound and the rest of the city.

Unfortunately, the circumstances driving the call for the meeting are all too familiar. On Sunday, February 4, another high-powered coward fired shots into a car at Park Avenue and Pendleton Street carrying five passengers, three of them children. One woman was killed and two others were struck by bullets, including an infant. A phalanx of community leaders joined the town hall session to express outrage over the incident.

But what’s the takeaway besides the ugly reality of being prepared to dodge bullets (and speed demons) at any given moment, mostly in Black communities? Mayor Paul Young has formed a comprehensive task force to attack the “chaos.” Hardaway distills why the ballot box must be the people’s equivalent.

There are four platform stages that need more legislative support to have stronger impact to affect crime’s root causes, he explains: “One, Prevention, such as equitable education opportunities; Two, Intervention to try to help young people who have gone off track pull themselves back together; Third, Detention for those who insist on having to take a time out from society and are a clear danger to society; Fourth, Reinvention, which is my term for re-entry. We don’t want to bring out the same person that we sent in. Moving from Prevention to Reinvention is why we fail at such a miserable rate and have such a high recidivism rate.”

In essence, the vote is the people’s currency to try to fight the lobbyist money trail. “Did you know that the gun lobby is so strong in the legislature that we cannot use the word locked as part of the requirement for gun safety? They want to use the word secure, which makes it obvious they are more concerned about the political appearance of supporting gun ownership than they are in actually putting laws in place that would reduce, for example, the number of guns stolen out of cars,” Hardaway said.