Last year, 41 people were shot in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend. Ten were fatal shootings, according to the city’s violence reduction dashboard. And ten of those people were shot in either Austin or North Lawndale, with one fatality in Austin and three in North Lawndale.
Chicago’s West Side is attempting to get that number to zero this year, and spoken word poet Kweisi Gharreau is helping with the effort.
Over Memorial Day weekend, Gharreau is hosting a free poetry and comedy open mic at a different location every day. On May 24, that will be at 1807 S. Kostner Ave. in North Lawndale. Attendees will include Congressman Danny Davis, Cook County Commissioners Tara Stamps and Michael Scott Jr., plus Ald. Monique Scott and Ald. Walter Burnett Jr.. The programming on May 23 and 25 takes place on Chicago’s South Side, and May 26’s event is held downtown.
All artists are welcome to show up and perform – including poets, comics, visual artists, dancers and musicians – so long as they don’t include any explicit lyrics. The Memorial Day weekend programming serves as a creative, safe space, protecting attendees from violence elsewhere in the city.
“Violence is the voice of the unheard. When you don’t express yourself creatively, you tend to express yourself violently,” Gharreau told Austin Weekly News. “The ceasefire is the umbrella, but the message is peace, love and forgiveness.”
Gharreau is based on Chicago’s South Side, where he’s principal partner and brand strategist at kgPR. He started ceasefire efforts last year after moving back to Chicago from Los Angeles, where he has several kgPR clients. But the idea started long before that.
Years ago, Gharreau said Brenda Matthews, a poet who passed in 2014, gathered a handful of poets after a couple of kids were killed on the West Side.
“We did poetry on the block on Friday and Saturday for a couple of weeks, and that mitigated or prevented the shootings. The idea came back when I was living in Hollywood. I would see the national, horrific news regarding the gun violence during Memorial Day holiday weekend and how historically it has become the most violent weekend in the city of Chicago,” Gharreau said. “My work takes me to the West Side because, unfortunately, it’s affected by gun violence on a day-to-day basis.”
According to the city’s violence reduction dashboard, 2,815 people were victims of Chicago shootings last year. Though that number is down from 2,943 in 2023, Austin and North Lawndale remain the two Chicago neighborhoods with the highest number of shootings.
Austin saw 227 shooting victims in 2023 and 203 last year. The next highest number of shooting victims in 2023 was 166 in North Lawndale. That number was down to 150 last year.
While those are annual average numbers, there are typically more shootings in Chicago in the summertime. Of the 393 shooting victims Austin and North Lawndale saw in 2023, 199 or about half of the shootings occurred between May 1 and Sept. 1. Of the 353 shootings last year in those neighborhoods, 190 occurred in that time frame – nearly 54%.
Over Memorial Day weekend in 2023, there were 51 shootings with 13 people killed – one of the most violent Memorial Day weekends to date in Chicago.
“People had some push back and said, ‘This is Chicago. This is a concrete jungle of all concrete jungles. Ceasefires tend to not work here,’” Gharreau said of his initial efforts last year. He credits marketing, radio interviews and prayer in reducing the citywide number of shooting victimizations from 51 in 2023 to 41 in 2024.
Also last year, the Westside Block Club Association organized a gang truce from May to September among four of the six street organizations on Chicago’s West Side to encourage a summer ceasefire.
Gharreau’s spoken word
Gharreau started writing poetry to cope with the death of his younger brother, James Lemar Ford, whose nickname was Lemont. Gang members killed Lemont in 1992 when he tried to protect a teenage girl from being kidnapped. After his brother’s execution, Gharreau struggled with grief and suicidal thoughts until he had a spiritual moment that led him to forgive his brother’s killers – who were sentenced to life in prison – through spoken word poetry.
When Gharreau shared his work in poetry readings to process Lemont’s death, people encouraged him to keep sharing his story.
“The loss of my brother was overwhelming, and poetry became the only way I could process the pain,” Gharreau said in a previous article reported by the Austin Weekly News. “It allowed me to express my emotions instead of holding them in, and as I shared my work, others encouraged me to keep going, which helped me find my voice.”
Since he started performing spoken word poetry, Gharreau has found success across the city and beyond.
Gharreau is currently Poet in Residence at Gallery Guichard in Bronzeville. He performs frequently on the city’s South and West Sides, including at several high schools. Gharreau previously hosted regular poetry readings at Afrika West Bookstore on the West Side. Last year, he spoke at the nonprofit Build, the GoChiLife DNC block party, and Chicago Teachers Union’s back-to-school jam.
Gharreau’s spoken word single “One Shot Away” was nominated for the 2024 Grammy’s merit award for Best Song for Social Change.
On May 23, those who wish to participate in the open mic ceasefire will meet at 6500 S. Racine Ave. in Englewood’s Ogden Park from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. The May 24 event will take place at 1807 S. Kostner Ave. from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. May 25 programming is at 10456 S. Halsted St. from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., and May 26’s is at 219 S. Dearborn St. from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.