She remembers him as a genius who was determined to jump to kindergarten after only two weeks of preschool. He was full of life and didn’t call her “mommy” or “mommy” but “happy.”
But she wasn’t surprised by the attention and support Highland Park received because it’s a predominantly white suburb of Chicago, she says. Gun violence is so normalized on Chicago’s South and West Sides that it doesn’t raise the same concern, she says.
“I thought there would be more of an outcry for a 4-year-old child whose life was taken, but I just didn’t see that,” Greg says. “We see it all the time, the disparity in how black kids and brown kids are treated.”
While the nation was shocked by the premeditated mass shooting in Highland Park, residents an hour south and west of Chicago mourned the death and injury toll that surpassed that of Highland Park. This July 4th weekend in Chicago, at least eight people were fatally shot and 68 injured by gun violence.
Gregg and community advocates say they are not comparing which tragedy is worse and stand in solidarity with the Highland Park community. They just want to see the same compassion and urgency to find answers as seen in Highland Park on the South and West Side — where they say there’s a near-expectation and acceptance of gun violence with little attention or resources.
The city of Chicago saw a 53 percent drop in homicides this year compared to last July 4th weekend, according to data from the Chicago Police Department. But residents say that doesn’t ease the sense of irritation they’ve felt since last weekend’s gun violence.
In 2021, Chicago experienced one of its deadliest years in the last quarter century with almost 800 murders. MJ was among the youngest victims. In the summer alone, 1,606 people were shot in one three-month period.
“All these children fell to the ground”
Corey Brooks, founder and senior pastor of New Beginnings Church in Chicago, says there is a persistent fear among black and brown youth on the city’s South and West sides that they will be the next victims of gun violence. He remembers being on a playground with a group of kids last summer when shots rang out and all the kids playing in the area immediately fell to the ground.
“In any other neighborhood, the kids probably would have run away, but all these kids fell to the ground,” he says. “What a sad commentary that these kids know, ‘OK, somebody’s shooting, hit the ground.'”
Brooks is also the founder and CEO of Project Helping Others Obtain Destiny (HOOD), a nonprofit organization focused on ending cycles of poverty and violence that provides mentoring to residents of Woodlawn and Englewood in Chicago.
Brooks says predominantly black and brown neighborhoods like Woodlawn and Englewood are hit hard by gun violence, along with other communities on the South and West sides like Austin, Roseland, Back of the Yards, Humboldt Park and others. What binds these communities together is poverty and a lack of resources, which means they are neglected, he added.
In Highland Park, the median household income was $147,067, according to 2020 census data, more than five times the median income in Woodlawn, which was $25,450, according to a 2021 report by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Following the Highland Park mass shooting, politicians including Vice President Kamala Harris, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Senator Tammy Duckworth visited the community.
TJ Grooms, associate pastor of New Beginnings Church of Chicago, who is also the manager of Project HOOD, says he wishes these politicians had also visited the south and west sides of Chicago and shown the same urgency to offer condolences to the families , affected by gun violence over the 4th of July weekend.
“If you’re in a position of power, you have to make sure that the same energy and the same effort that you put into one area is put into the other,” Grooms said. “I’m not going to visit an area like Highland Park and then not show up on the other end of the spectrum.”
They are no longer allowed to be children
Grooms says mental health among black and brown youth on Chicago’s South and West Sides is a major issue in relation to gun violence. Young people are left traumatized and don’t know how to deal with these violent experiences, forcing them into “survival mode” where their childhoods are taken away from them, he added.
In the months since MJ’s death, Greg has also struggled with the trauma and loss of losing his only child. But she also became a youth activist.
The weekend MJ was killed still haunts her. She and MJ were in Chicago for Labor Day weekend, visiting from Alabama so he could spend time with his father, Mychal Moultry Sr.
As MJ and his father were bonding and braiding their hair at a family friend’s apartment in Woodlawn, bullets flew through the window, hitting the boy twice in the head. Over the same holiday weekend, five other people were killed and at least 61 others were injured in gun violence across the city.
Just days later, Gregg and Moultrie Sr. were making funeral arrangements.
When a family loses a child to gun violence, funeral expenses can present additional hardship and pain. In April, the Illinois House of Representatives and Senate overwhelmingly passed the Mychal Moultry Jr. Funeral and Burial Assistance Act, in which the state provides funeral and burial assistance to low-income families for children under the age of 17. who are killed by gun violence.
Gregg says it’s great to see the state relieve some of the financial burden, but she wants to see lawmakers focus more on preventing gun violence in the first place so there are no funerals to pay for.
“It’s two completely different worlds,” says Greg. “We were able to move this legislation within about six or seven months after MJ was passed, but the laws that actually prevent this from happening in the first place are still unknown.”
Gregg says people are becoming desensitized to gun violence in Chicago and the impact it has on youth, families and the larger community.
Brooks says he wants black and brown youth in neighborhoods like Woodlawn to live in safe environments and grow to reach their full potential. If the same level of care and compassion was shown on Chicago’s south and west sides as in Highland Park, he says there would be more resources and solutions directed at communities to combat gun violence.
After the mass shooting in Highland Park, community members left behind strollers, lawn chairs, bicycles, shoes, toys, blankets and more. On Chicago’s South and West Sides, Grooms says material items aren’t what’s lost when mass shootings happen in the community almost every day.
“What’s left behind is innocence, what’s left behind is sensitivity, what’s left behind is hope, what’s left behind is mostly this justice,” Grooms says. “We don’t get justice for our babies and our teenagers who are shot and killed, and it’s very rare that we see the people who kill someone brought to justice.”
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