What will it take? How many more shootings? How many more children slain?

Columnist John Fountain asks, "Is there no recourse for this city than to surrender those streets that lie on the other side? Oh Chicago, how long before our children by the gun no longer die?"

Khalil White El, 18, was previously a member of The Faith Community of St. Sabina’s Brave Youth Program and most recently in the church’s Strong Futures Mentoring Program, where he was a mentee. He was fatally shot in August 2022 on the South Side. Khalil had recently landed a new job and shared his excitement about it with mentors. Here, his father Rodney White El releases a dove in his son’s memory. (Photo: John Fountain)

By John W. Fountain

What will it take? How many more shootings? How many more children slain? When will this city finally muster the moral and political will to end this homicidal rain?

Why did 5-year-old Reign Ware have to die—fatally wounded early Sunday when gunmen opened fire, her father reportedly standing outside the car while his daughter sat inside it on the city’s West Side?

And which should we care about most: Why that precious little girl wasn’t tucked into her bed and safely asleep at about 3 a.m.?

Or why anybody with an ounce of decency, humanity, home training or love would spray a city block with reportedly as many as 60 shots? Or why they—and countless other killers for years and years and years—still have not been caught? Why have we not managed to stop this onslaught?

Wanna get away with murder? Why not move to Chicago, shoot someone Black, someone Black and poor, someone Black and poor in the hood, on the other side of the tracks, where life has come to mean less and less, and there is the expectation of sudden gunfire and death?

Why has murder become as normal as Chicago’s icy winter’s breath?

Reign Ware, 5, was reportedly among at least 41 people were shot, nine fatally, including over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago. Her family announced that a GoFundMe has been set up. (Photo: Screenshot from GoFundMe page.)

Emerald City

HAS THIS EMERALD WORLD-class city lost its collective soul? Has the love of the Black church now waxed cold?

Have politicians and the safety and security of neighborhood streets in mostly Black and brown neighborhoods been sold? Why does the death bell from gunfire on the “Cold Coast” toll, and yet ring mostly hollow on the “Gold Coast” and beyond?

Why, since I first began covering murder and violence in my hometown 35 years ago, is it the same sad song?

What will the year-end body count tally? How many mass shootings this year will Chicago have alone? Who can count all the tears and sorrow sown inside hospital emergency rooms and at cemeteries, where gunned down children were buried prematurely like trampled flowers—denied the right to live and grow?

If there is a God in heaven, why does he allow this hell on earth to exist? Or is this crisis less His and more ours to fix?

Would we be remiss to not take full blame for our complacency, complicity and the absence of shame? For the devolution of our communities and profound political games that employ tricky statistics to shroud the truth? That delude, pacify and obfuscate, like a dog and pony show of police-seized guns and drugs on the 10 o’clock news?

And if a “gun turn-in” does not stem the tide, then why not encourage a “son turn-in” so that the killers can no longer hide?

Pallbearers carry the casket of Marquise Richardson, 14, to an idling hearse. Marquise was fatally shot on the city’s South Side on July 29, 2021. That June, he had graduated 8^th grade at St. Sabina Academy. Five days later, he turned 14.  About a month later, he was gone. No major headlines. No pause in this city’s summer body count. No stagger in the pulse of life in this murderous city. (Photo: John W. Fountain)

Saving The Soul of A City

HOW MUCH MORE THE light might shine upon Chicago’s besieged streets if all churches joined the Faith Community of St. Sabina’s annual summer plight to save the city’s soul, stamp out murder, help make Chicago whole? What if Black pastors and politicians could set aside for a season maintenance of their own fiefdoms and their crystal glass egos?

And what if the cavalry or a Black messiah never come? What if the dream of peace has for too long now languished like a raisin in the sun?

What if the answer to what ails us is us? Not one of us, or some of us, but all of us, each and every one of us?

And if the mayor is Black, and the Cook County state’s attorney, the Illinois attorney general, the Chicago police chief, the Cook County Board commissioner, lieutenant governor, and the aldermen of the city’s Black wards are Black, then what power do we lack?

And so what if it hasn’t always been this way, am I lying or spitting fact?

Ashley Adams, mother of Marquise Richardson, 14, is comforted on the stairs of The Faith Community of St. Sabina where her son’s funeral service was held in August 2021, as Father Michael L. Pfleger stands nearby. (Photos: John W. Fountain)

As Predictable As The Song Cicadas Sing

Will the international spotlight at the Democratic National Convention this summer cause a temporary lull in the pop-pop-pop-pop-pop? Make the shooting stop? Make it safer finally, even of temporarily, for children to come outside and play, jump rope on the sidewalk, dance in a cold-water spray on a sultry summer day?

And why, a month before the start of summer, do those who dwell in places like North Lawndale, Englewood, Auburn Gresham, Austin, and East and West Garfield fear what the heat and breath of the summer season will bring? Why is the explosion of automatic gunfire there as predictable as the evening song that cicadas sing?

Is there no recourse for this city than to surrender those streets that lie on the other side? Oh Chicago, how long before our children by the gun no longer die?

Reign Ware’s family announced a GoFundMe has been set up.

Email: Author@johnwfountain.com

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The portraits of Chicago murder victims on a memorial wall form the backdrop of the bronze life-like sculpture unveiled recently outside The Faith Community of St. Sabina in Chicago. (Photo: John W. Fountain)

The sculpture of a weeping Jesus kneeling over the body of a young man in a hoody was unveiled recently outside The Faith Community of St. Sabina in Chicago. It is the work of Timothy P. Schmalz—a Canadian figurative artist whose pieces have been installed worldwide, including at historical churches in Rome and at the Vatican. (Photo: John W. Fountain)

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Each summer, Father Michael L. Pfleger and the Faith Community of St. Sabina lead marches each Friday for the duration of summer through the Auburn Gresham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. In 2021, Fountain and journalist Samantha Latson set out to chronicle the church’ journey, covering every march over 12 hot and muggy weeks. To view their project, click on the photo of links : Invasion of Faith and A Chicago Story of Hope In Pictures