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The Barger Academy Movement Makers perform during the OZcars Gala Friday, May 10, 2019 at Unum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The event was held for the Opportunity Zone schools in Hamilton County to celebrate educators who have gone above and beyond to help students succeed. The Barger Academy Movement Makers perform during the OZcars Gala Friday, May 10, 2019 at Unum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The event was held for the Opportunity Zone schools in Hamilton County to celebrate educators who have gone above and beyond to help students succeed.

By David Cook June 2, 2019 5 min read

Not long ago in Chattanooga, a little girl got suspended from a neighborhood rec center.

She’d threatened two other girls with a knife. (A butter knife, but still a knife.)

One day, the girl – she’s probably 7 or 8 – sneaked back into the center, pleading for a sack lunch. Nearby, a police officer – a black woman who’d stopped by the rec center – listened to the girl’s story.

Let me walk you home, she told the girl.

Inside the housing project apartment, the officer asked the mother: Why did your daughter pull a knife?