Detroit, Michigan Mayor Denny Duggan was on hand Friday night as a new initiative, "Occupy the Corner," was launched with City Council Member Mary Sheffield at Lafayette/Chene in zip code 48205 having Detroit's highest crime rate.
"We're fired up and fed up," hundreds of clergy and resident chanted October 3rd when most City officials were at home other than Council Member Cushionberry who join Sheffield and the Mayor under a tent as rain drizzled amid singing of "Amazing Grace," "We Shall Overcome," and more.
Fired up they were.
And, fed up.
Tired of crime in the struggling 'hood" where neighbor seems to have been taken out of the sparsely populated streets in a town that vied with Chicago and New York once upon a time.
After a spirited "bullhorn" session, the crowd walked over to the Martin Luther King Apartments to distribute service opportunities such as jot hints with Detroit Employment Solutions, Sheffield said the City contracted with to aid the impoverished and drug-infested strip mall where a Spartan store, Family Fair Food, and the Elmwood Park Library is situated alongside a row of unkempt and empty storefronts.
Sheffield was knocking on doors and greeting residents who warmly welcome her literature and zest.
Other such "Occupy the Corner" initiatives are set for a few remaining Fall Fridays at the corner.
The program drew one City Council member from Brooklyn who told the tale of a similar "Occupy the Corner" in New York, along with remarks from a minister who was tapped by Sheffield to wrap up his talk after his admonition to participants to report criminals.
I imagine a tent with my decades-old organization's sandwich-board sign, "All-faiths Festival Care of the Soul" sitting at that corner Sunday for a praise service.
And, I bet the "fired up" Sheffield, among others, will join me as I lead the worshipers.
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