Neighbors and residents who live in the Grove Street area will host a rally at noon Saturday at the Westside Softball Field to try and encourage community safety and unity after a deadly shooting there last month.
The Grove Street shooting on Sept. 25 resulted in the deaths of 37-year-old Labrecia Dews and 21-year-old Keniqua Hughes. Several others were injured. Earlier that same day, 21-year-old Jailen Wofford was fatally shot on Campbell Street.
Leaders across Chattanooga and Hamilton County have called for change in the weeks since, from elected officials to activists, all hoping to find a solution to the problem of gun violence in local communities. Among them is Community Haven Chattanooga president and local Nation of Islam leader Kevin Muhammad, one of the organizers for Saturday's rally.
(READ MORE: 'It makes no sense': Community mourns after weekend of violence in Chattanooga)
"I grew up on the west side of town," Muhammad said. "When I heard that seven of our women were shot and two of them were killed, that took things to a whole new level. This community believes in respecting and protecting our women, so I thought this was an opportunity for men and for everyone to gather together and say enough is enough."
Muhammad said Saturday would be a day of "atonement, reconciliation and responsibility" during which attendees would have the opportunity to fast, pray and discuss ways to end violence in Chattanooga and its surrounding communities. Activists from "various different organizations from all different sectors of the community" will speak at the rally, he said, including representatives from the NAACP and the city.
A $10,000 reward will be offered to anyone with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the Grove Street shooting, he said.
To come up with the reward money, Muhammad said, Community Haven Chattanooga initially asked 100 Black men to commit $100 each. As of Thursday, more than $7,000 had been pledged.
"However, this is not just limited to Black men," he said by phone on Thursday. "Women or whoever else who wants to contribute can contribute. This is something everyone can take part in."
Anyone who would like to donate to the reward fund can do so by visiting communityhavenchattanooga.org and clicking on the "Grove Street Justice" tab. Donations also can be sent via Cash App to $grovestreetjustice.
As a community leader who tries to be consistently involved in the lives of young people living in Chattanooga's Westside area, Muhammad said he has given a lot of thought to what could be done to help heal local communities and prevent further violence from taking place. For him, it's about older generations taking accountability and being generous with the younger generations who look up to them for guidance and instruction.
"We love our young people and want to atone to our young people for not making a better way for them to get out of conditions they weren't responsible for putting themselves in. We want them to know we love them and are committed to making this right for them," he said. "How do we do that? We have to begin to come back into our communities. Those of us who have become successful with whatever expertise we have need to come back and lend our talents to our communities to show there's a better way. We have to love one another and give that love to our communities."
Muhammad also suggested neighborhood watch groups and conflict resolution classes as potential ways to address the problem.
"We could have people in the neighborhoods patrolling their own communities. See something, say something. We could have life repair centers where we teach kids how to repair broken lives and fix things when they don't know how. We could have conflict resolution meetings."
At a meeting last week at the Kingdom Center at Olivet Baptist Church, other community members seemed to share Muhammad's vision for bettering the future by starting with young people. They suggested everything from creating changes to strengthen the local educational system to creating more opportunities for outside-of-school activities youth can participate in to keep them off the streets.
Chattanooga Public Safety Coordinator Troy Rogers said providing "loving consistency" to young people would make all the difference.
"Nobody is born bad. There is no kid that wakes up one morning and says, 'I'm going to blow your brains out.' These are things that happen to them when they are in elementary school," Rogers said. "If a kid cannot read in elementary school, he's going to prison. He's going to struggle. If he grows up in a poverty house, that's going to be hard for him. If he grows up without a father in his home, he's going to have issues. Everybody sitting here with their mouth on the ground knows this is real."
On Saturday, Muhammad said he hopes to hear other people's ideas. More than that, he hopes to see healing.
(READ MORE: Three dead, several injured after weekend shootings in Chattanooga)
"We would love to bring justice to these families. We want to do that and we want to be a neighborhood, the way a neighborhood is supposed to be," Muhammad said. "We have to be there for each other."
Contact Kelcey Caulder at kcaulder@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6327. Follow her on Twitter @kelceycaulder.