As the smoke of grilled food intertwined with the sound of 90s R&B and Hip-Hop music sailed upward into the air, some melanated children and adults roller-skated under the pavilion in Anacostia Park. Children ate ice cream cones, potato chips, and hot dogs. Groups of youth took selfies, while others received face paintings. As the joyous, organized chaos swirled at the park, Kenneth Dawkins sat along a short concrete wall, patiently observing and enjoying the presence of his community.

“I am here for the ambiance,” Dawkins said to me. The gathering of people in that place reminded him of old D.C., where community members often organically gathered to sing, dance, eat, and play spades. It was a familiar, safe vibe, one encased in Black culture. He was at an anti-violence event. 

“They don’t show this on the news,” said Dawkins, who is 66 years old. 

The anti-violence, after-school/community-based program, “Rolling Away From Violence” was organized by Tiera Bratton, social entrepreneur and CEO of Opportunities For Deserving Children, a non-profit organization that creates extracurricular and mentoring programs for children living in communities that are politically marginalized. This particular community-based/after-school program gives children a safe space to play and engage with peers and mentors. Bratton’s organization kicked off its first event in May – when carjackings and murders were steadily on the rise. 

In D.C., and Prince George’s County, carjackings and homicides have risen, but other crimes have declined. City and perhaps county leaders have taken similar approaches to tackling crime: youth curfews (which have proven not to work) and more police presence in violent areas of the city. 

When Opportunities For Deserving Children launched the program, Bratton told me, it didn’t initially attract a huge crowd. However, as June and July approached - the crowd swelled to nearly hundreds of children, who traveled from Southwest, Northwest, Northeast, and Southwest to Anacostia every Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m.

One of the organization's core principles is making resources accessible for community members, a tradition within Black Mutual Aid Societies. The organization has partnered with Cure The Streets, a program within the D.C. Attorney General’s office, mental health organizations, community literacy programs, local artists, and yoga instructors. D.C. and Prince George’s County have a number of resources to help combat social ills. However, for some parents, Bratton said, a lack of transportation and other factors can hinder them from getting needed assistance. 

“There are not enough programs like this one [in the city],” said Cotey Wynn, program supervisor at Cure The Streets. “There are a lot of kids involved in sports, but we need events like this to bring our youth together, you know, to make sure they’re safe.” 

Wynn said to me – near the end of the summer, when the weekly event was about to cease for fall – that he was trying to convince Bratton to keep the program going. “We need to support this [organization],” he told me over the phone. While the organization has temporarily ceased its activity at Anacostia Park, since Oct. 5 it has partnered with the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services to hold the roller skating event for youth at that facility.

In The Name of Love 

Bratton, and organizations alike, are stepping in during a time when residents want more programs that reach their children. At town hall meetings, in D.C. and Prince George’s County, community members are consistently begging elected officials to bring more low-cost/ free programs to community centers. They believe, with good reason, that these programs could deter children from going down the wrong path and making poor decisions. 

Based on some evidence, community-based/after-school programs have a positive impact on youth and their communities.  In 2016, the Centers For Disease Control released a study showing the effectiveness of youth-targeted mentoring and after-school programs. 

“After-school programs are one of many evidence-based strategies to reduce the risk for involvement in violence and crime,” said Dr. Ashley D’Inverno, associate chief of science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “These programs can help youth grow into healthy adults, and…really encourage school connectedness, which is when students feel that adults and peers actually care about their well-being. This serves as a protective factor that might help prevent or reduce things like substance abuse, violence, suicide, or other poor mental health outcomes.” 

There is also another added layer. D’Inverno said programs that provide child supervision along with structured time help to fill in a parental gap. In D.C. and Prince George’s County sometimes come home to temporarily parentless or guardianless homes. In such situations, older siblings are required to provide care for younger siblings. When children are left alone, they can sometimes succumb to making poor choices - hanging out with the wrong crowd.

​​”Kids can become curious and, you know, succumb to peer pressure…during that time,” D’Inverno said. 

She said getting children connected to programs with structure and supervision can help deter them from making poor decisions. Furthermore, D’Iverno, who is a parent, said it’s important to get other parents involved in children's lives. Parents knowing each other's families, she said, “strengthens those protective factors for youth.” 

Community Spaces 

Through the organization, Bratton and her team have chiseled out spaces for positive peer-to-peer interaction and opportunities. In those spaces, she wants to plant a seed of possibility. “These children,” Bratton said to me while at a Starbucks in Anacostia, “live in neighborhoods where everyone is struggling.” 

“They don't see people progressing,” she lamented while sitting across the table from me. “They are accustomed to that environment, so they're used to coming outside and there's trash everywhere.”

(Note: There are various reasons why Black neighborhoods are filled with trash. Prince George’s County and D.C. residents have documented illegal dumping in their neighborhoods.)

Additionally, some children live in food insecure neighborhoods and some of them are homeless. She said some of them move from “house to house.” 

“Some of my children don’t have money to get haircuts, so they loc their hair,” Bratton said.  

If anyone understands what it means to live in such an environment, and to some degree what it takes to reach them, Bratton does. She grew up in Glassmanor, Prince George’s County, an unincorporated neighborhood that exists on the edges of Southeast Washington, D.C. Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington, D.C. referred to Prince George’s County as Ward 9. Though D.C. and Prince George’s County have separate local governments - neighborhoods bordering the city are impacted by what happens there. It is an unincorporated, majority African-American community.  It is a mixed-income neighborhood with middle-class families living alongside low-income families. However, overall the community is still poor - 14 percent poverty rate. 

Initially, like the rest of Prince George’s County, it was a white community, but then Black people started to migrate there. Soon after, white people departed and most moved further out into Maryland. 

Black residents, according to the Washington Post’s 1977 article, felt the county had abandoned the neighborhood. There were no community schools and community recreation centers, which left children with nothing to do. Children were bussed out of the neighborhood to attend other schools. Since that time, due to local activists, the community has received a recreation center, an elementary school, and has increased its housing stock. Rushern Baker, former Prince George’s county executive, had plans to further develop the community. But that development never fully materialized. 

Bratton speaks about Glassmanor with pride, not like outsiders do, who always seem to only mention the crime. She lived on Marcy Avenue with her grandmother, Alice Battle. 

“My grandmother was the candy lady in the community,” explained Bratton, who said her grandmother is her inspiration. “She was a giving person.” 

But, she also supplied her neighbors with more than candy. She gave them money and toilet paper.

“We were the family that just wanted to help the community,” she said.  

Bratton said she was around 13-years-old when she furnished elementary school-aged children with shoes and other clothing items. 

“I would say, ‘Stay right here.’ Then I would go to my room and bring them some clothes – the ones that I could no longer fit,” she said. “They…were in excellent condition.”

“It was just…a passion,” Bratton said.  “I enjoyed, you know, looking at their smile.” 

As an adult, she continued to give back to her community. She worked as an instructor for an after-school program at the Glassmanor Community Center, the neighborhood's first recreation center located on Marcy Avenue, not far from her home. The all-girls after-school program was called “Teacups on Marcy.” 

At the time, Bratton also worked full-time at the Department of Interior. She met with 11 girls on Wednesday after work. She coached the girls to care for their bodies, talked to them about bullying, self-respect, and provided them with pre-workforce development. This mentoring program lasted for about five years.

But it’s not only her grandmother’s example that inspired her to give back to her community. Her grandmother also empowered her to know that Glassmanor’s environment had no final say over her life. Often when children grow up in neighborhoods that are politically and socially marginalized, they are less likely to finish school, are truant, and turn to a life of crime. 

But Bratton, with guidance from family members, learned that she could live out her dreams. It is a lesson she teaches the children she encounters. Not only does she run a non-profit, but she now works as a government contractor. In the DMV, depending on the position, government jobs are pipelines to economic stability. Now, she doesn’t believe all the children who pass through her programs will be government employees. (She’s not against it either). However, she does believe that her life, along with others, is an example for the children.

“I'm like a testimony to [the children I work with],” she said. 

It Takes A Community To Impact A Community 

The Thursday event is one of many programs the organization has created. The organization has partnered with Brian Bailey to teach art and healing classes inside a low-income apartment complex in Southwest D.C. Additionally, she has partnered with Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, Prince George’s County, to do a girl-only after-school program called “Girls Prepping For Success.” Last year, she partnered with Brown Girl Tech World, an organization that helps Black and Brown women transition into the technology sector, to teach a STEM boot camp for youth ages 6-14. She just ended a short summer program teaching DC children how to use Python. The classes were held in Chinatown. 

Bratton doesn’t have all the answers, but she is committed to the work to better people's lives. 

“These [children] need a way out,” she said. “If they don’t, it’s going to be violence, they're going to continue to drop out of school. So that’s where mentors like myself step in to help them navigate through this life.” 

After listening to Dawkins share thoughts on the D.C. youth, the space needed for them to thrive, and the fact that Black youth are not inherently violent, I told him I had to go. As I got up – without me knowing, my reporter's badge fell off my belt. 

“Hey sir,” a young Black boy said. Holding my badge in his hand – he asked: “Did you drop this?” 

I could see Dawkins watching from the background.  “Yes,” I replied as I reached out my hand for the badge. “Thank you.”

As the boy handed me the badge - I looked at Dawkins. He gave me an old man’s wink - one I knew related to our conversation about the ambiance and the safety of the space that we were both in, the one reporters, he said, rarely talk about. 

“Right,” I said. I turned and walked towards my car through a sea of Black children having a good time. 

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