In early 2006, when New Orleans’ public schools were struggling to reopen after Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, my son, then, 10, began participating in a program called  “Rethink” – Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools. 

Publicist Jane Wholey founded Rethink to give middle-school students a voice in reshaping public education in New Orleans post-Katrina. Jane and other progressive leaders taught the “Rethinkers,” a group of 20 or so adolescents, to “speak truth to power” about the deplorable state of public education in New Orleans before Katrina, and the need to “get it right” now that all schools had been closed and were reopening under new management. 

The kids became student activists, but first they were fact-finders. They interviewed families, school staff, and hundreds of students about bad school food and foul bathrooms. They learned to develop their messaging  – which always included solutions, not just complaints. Then they hosted carefully planned and rehearsed press conferences, which brought some seasoned media folks to tears. 

Those of us who were Rethink family members – some of us part of the Rethink “Elders Circle” – felt a keen sense of responsibility to support and protect all the Rethinkers, to help make their big dreams a reality.

In 2007, an eight-year old boy climbed onto a chair in order to reach the microphone. His job was to open a Rethink press conference at Samuel J. Green Charter School, in front of a large audience. His two big brothers and his big sister were Rethink leaders. At prior press conferences, he had witnessed the older kids introducing themselves:  “Hello, my name is Vernard and I am a Rethinker.”  

So he followed their lead, as he stood on the chair in front of a microphone. “My name is George Carter,” he said, “and I am a Pre-Thinker.”  Smiles and laughter rippled across the audience at this bold little kid, staking his claim. 

Everyone in that room could see that George was destined to be an activist. Sweet, thoughtful George whose big brown eyes searched the faces of adults, seeking a connection, offering trust, and usually, a hug.  

Trying to Keep Kids Safe

I live in an idyllic part of New Orleans, where Bayou St. John meets City Park before making its way to Lake Pontchartrain. It is a relatively safe neighborhood where people walk their dogs, even after dark, a seemingly protected little bubble in an otherwise violent city. 

New Orleans is my hometown, but I often wondered why it was called “The City That Care Forgot.” I learned that it was featured on a banner outside the St. Charles Hotel in 1910 during Mardi Gras season, presumably to let visitors know that it was okay to let their hair down and be carefree while on vacation here. 

In recent years, my children, now 28 and 30, have begun telling me stories from their teenage years in New Orleans. Both went on to become healthy, happy adults. I’m not sure how. No parent, however vigilant, can prevent kids from taking risks, making bad choices, or being harmed by some random occurrence. 

As an alert mom whose own mother was alcoholic, I knew how easy it was for New Orleans kids to get booze. There was a bar on St. Charles Avenue that regularly served kids alcohol during Mardi Gras parades – it’s on the corner where many high schoolers got dropped off to watch the parades. I can hear my kids’ voices, “Mom, come on, everyone will be there.” 

Indeed, part of me was grateful that our kids and their friends had some bad experiences with alcohol early on because it taught them what not to do. It is no fun puking in the backseat of someone’s car, or worse – passing out and being vulnerable to who knows what.

Now, with them a decade past adolescence, I am grateful that my kids’ stories of sneaking off to hang out with friends – by climbing out the second-story window of our house, landing on the little roof that covered our back door, and stepping down onto the deck railing – elicit from me nothing more terrible than, “So that’s how the gutter got dented!” 

From our home with the dented gutter, I cross the bayou and drive a half mile to work up Orleans Avenue, passing the Bibleway Missionary Baptist Church, the Mom and Pop Food Store, blocks of shotgun houses, and the Ruth U. Fertel Health Clinic where Orleans meets Broad Street. 

I never thought much about the Mom and Pop Food Store, a corner convenience store, but during one of our storytelling sessions my son Tucker says, “Yeah, that’s the place we’d go to buy booze. The lady behind the counter would tuck the bottle into my backpack.” 

I could only imagine the Mom at the Mom and Pop Food Store, taking the time to offer my child this mom-like courtesy of putting the vodka, or bourbon, or whatever it was, snugly into my son’s backpack, in between his spiral notebook and his copy of The Great Gatsby, next to his gym shorts and the plastic bag of leftover apple slices that I’d handed him to make sure he had something healthy to eat. 

I envision her saying, or thinking, “You’re all set” and smiling at my child as he pushed open the glass door, exited the dim interior of the store, and walked into the light.

I wonder if the Mom of the Mom and Pop Food Store had teenagers. And, given what we experienced 10 years ago within our Rethink family, I wonder if they grew up safe and sound, seeing as how we all know it takes a village to raise a child. 

A Life Cut Short

On October 21, 2014, I got a phone call from my then college-aged son. I was sitting at an outdoor table eating a black-bean burger for lunch at Liberty’s Kitchen, the youth development program. I opened my flip phone and heard his anguished voice.

“Mom,” he cried, “Mom, they shot George. They shot George and he’s dead.”

Fifteen-year-old George Carter III was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head, his body left on a desolate stretch of Piety Street in the Desire neighborhood in the 9th Ward. He had been walking to school that morning when he was killed.

Those of us who knew and loved him were in shock. How could this have happened? Who was he with? Had he fallen in with the wrong crowd? Was it a minor misunderstanding turned violent? So many unanswered questions.

George’s murder did not even make the local evening news. 

I wondered at the time, where is the outrage? George’s was the second death of someone under age 17 in a 10-day period in our city. The other was 16-year old Skye Johnson, who was also shot to death in the Desire neighborhood. His devastated school community, along with the organization Silence Is Violence, held a vigil march around the neighborhood the day after Skye died. 

Still, despite the grief and mourning from close families, neighbors and friends, there was a broader, overarching feeling that New Orleans had begun to regard these losses as the norm, not the exception. And that’s truly tragic. The death of Black teens had become so commonplace in our city, in our society, that it was not even cause for alarm, or media coverage.

Soon after George’s death, he received an homage giving his death the prominence that he deserved.

Artist Brandan “BMike” Odums spearheaded the creation of “Exhibit BE,” a monumental artwork on the site of DeGaulle Manor, an abandoned apartment complex on New Orleans’ West Bank. Along with other artists, Odums created a collection of murals spanning four buildings with a bold political message, about poverty, oppression, white supremacy, and the Black experience. 

In the center of it, Odums painted a five-story tall portrait of young George Carter, grasping a bouquet of flowers.

Thousands of people flocked to see Exhibit BE. Visitors were as diverse as the city itself – from the families of the mostly Black artists, many of whom had lost children to violence, to the well-heeled art patrons who were first-time visitors to this West Bank neighborhood. 

Exhibit BE attracted international attention, not only for its artistic merit, but because of the very real social-justice issues it illustrated. Bold, thought-provoking, damning. My family visited during one of the events held there. We were bowled over by the massive collaborative work and by its message.

In May, crews began demolishing DeGaulle Manor. It is part of the “Dirty Dozen” of New Orleans’ most blighted properties. My more cynical self thinks,  “Well, we’re hosting the Super Bowl next year, and the city is trying to clean up blight, fix sidewalks and potholes, put on a good face.” 

But as a lifelong New Orleanian, I also get it. The massive apartment complex, with its crumbling walls and its dark abandoned apartments that invite nighttime visitors, is surely a liability. I understand why its owner would choose to limit risk by taking it down.

Still, its demolition erases a memorial to a slain kid who held such promise. 

For whatever reason our city – our village – failed George Carter. We weren’t looking out for him. Despite having a loving family and many community connections,  George died from gun violence. We lost track of him. 

I wonder if there was some adult in George’s life, who, at a critical time, tucked some kind of toxin into his backpack, literally or metaphorically. I wonder if a grownup lured George into making a bad choice or somehow put him in harm’s way – as if racism and a culture of gun violence weren’t enough for a Black teen to overcome in order to survive and thrive. If that’s the case, then it is we adults who are at fault for what happened to George, and so many others like him. 

In the 10 years since George’s death, we have lost so many more in New Orleans to gun violence. And in recent years, after youth crime rose and then fell, we have pointed a lot of fingers at young people, as if they were villains.  Yet, when I hear these characterizations, I am reminded that it is we, the adults, who create the village, set the expectations, and weave the community safety net that keeps the young ones safe. 

Let us hold tight to those threads, and keep our eyes on our children, our village’s most precious asset. 

Claudia Barker is a nonprofit executive and professional fundraiser who specializes in programs that benefit youth.