Kenosha uses poetry to help heal 1 year after Jacob Blake police shooting

By Web Staff

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    KENOSHA, Wisconsin (WISN) — One year after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, the community continues to come together to heal.

Some community leaders have organized what they’re calling “Kenosha Uptown Days of Healing.”

It’s one of the first efforts to join as a community as Kenosha continues to grow and change.

“One year later we’re all still here. But we have not forgotten. Yet we still walk forward with faith that change will come,” Aniyah Ervin said Monday.

The 17-year-old Bradford High School senior joined others in Civic Center Park to poetically speak their hearts about what it means to be black in Kenosha.

The gathering was held one year after the unrest that followed the police shooting.

“A lot of people said they cared. But once everything was heading down we never heard anything again from those people. And it’s truly unfair because for people like you. For people who are not people of color. It goes away. But for me. This is my life,” Ma’Kia Hughes said.

The murals remain on storefronts that might never reopen.

There’s been physical and emotional rebuilding.

Daron Green believes there was hope for racial justice.

“Some days you want to wake up and be like why I gotta keep on fighting this battle. It shouldn’t be this. It should never be this. It should realistically everybody should be equal and the same. But it’s just not that way. Deep down I have optimism. But right now I’m just tired,” he said.

Shenia Martin said she looks back at the civil rights struggle of the ’60s for a blueprint on how to move forward.

“We’re living it for ourself. Instead of reading history. We are becoming history. So there’s no right way to do it. There’s no wrong way to do it,” she said.

Other community events are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

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