Just got back from a controlled, input/feedback forum on addressing West Louisville's violent crime from a community level.

input 1

Listed below are the ten solutions, per community input, suggested for concerned citizens to contribute time and resources:

1. Job Training Programs. Resume Writing/ Career Development Workshops.

2. Implement a personal development program for male youth that focuses on morals, positive behaviors, and progressive lifestyle choices.

3. Neighborhood Cleanup, Adopt a Block (Westend Street Patrol) Assess needs via surveys.

4. Workshops/Forums focused on Conflict Resolution – Hotline for parents to call.

5. Implement a Community Empowerment Initiative (Promotes community businesses, entrepreneurship, nonprofit development, local commerce, and establishes area culturally inclusive educational programs and schools).

6. Community Advocacy Board/Liaison to address property/rental issues (Slumlords, Neglected Properties, and Rental Assistance.)

7. Implement community programs that develops and promotes minority leadership within city government.

8. Community Cease fire between rival neighborhoods.

9. Motivational Speaker Series & Hip Hop “Stop The Violence” Campaign.

10. Open up metro corrections, JCYC, and community barbershops for mentoring and reentry programs.


They have done it in Chicago.

The Englewood Whole Foods finally opened on 63rd and Halsted (covered in the last Mo’pinion).

West Louisville, KY – People filled The Louisville Urban League Tuesday evening for a town hall discussion tonight on the LUL campus in west louisville regarding race relations and violent crime.

The featured panelists for the town hall meeting were:

  • LMPD police chief Steve Conrad;
  • the Rev. Dr. Kevin Cosby of St. Stephen Baptist Church and president of Simmons College of Kentucky;
  • Sadiqa Reynolds, Esq. President and CEO of the Louisville Urban League;

The moderators were Dr. Ricky L. Jones of the University of Louisville and the Ricky Jones Show on 93.1 The Beat and WHAS Radio's Terry Meiners.

Photos by urban photojournalist, Bud Dorsey 2016

As of the moment of this piece’s publishing, it appears that the FoodPort project is dead and the Walmart project is in a suspended limbo deep coma where the plug is going to be pulled on that as well. Two considerable opportunities for economic stimulus in the West End looks to be Gone Baby, Gone.

So what now? What happened?

It was an honor and a pleasure to hear Dr. Claud Anderson at the West Louisville Forum today and this evening at St. Stephen Baptist Church. Simmons College of Kentucky hosted a wonderful monthly event that I hope translates into development and progress.

Dr. Anderson’s body of work has laid a foundation for Black folk to discuss and follow. Having an extra opportunity to chat a bit with the man and ask him questions were even more helpful. I first read PowerNomics in the early 2000s and Black Labor, White Wealth well before that in the mid 1990s. I have fully consumed and understand his historical and economic frameworks that got us where Black folk currently are compared to ancestors’ bondage, journey and captured residence in America.

I'm going on a few asides with this piece...but journey with me a little bit. At the end of the day, I might be engaging in make-believe spookery that's a product of my own mind. I might be mistaking nostalgia and cultural markers through the deaths of astounding public figures and entertainment icons of my coming of age...but I believe the cultural icons and celebrities that have passed in 2016, through their transitions, mark a living metaphor and a new threshold in the sojourn of Black folk in America.

I have said, and I continue to say, that Black folk are at a critical time here in June 2016...and I am not sure that beyond 2016 is exactly a "promised land" for Black people. It is a transition, but what it is a transition to is going to be up to us...because staying ignorant and on the sidelines is no longer a viable option. President Obama will be stepping down and there is going to be a paradigm shift for Black folk.