By Victoria Mejicanos
AFRO Staff Writer
vmejicanos@afro.com
When tragedy strikes a community, less attention is focused on what or who rises in spite of it in the months and years after. This month, the AFRO spoke with Baltimore women who experienced personal and community tragedies and became organizers, advocates and sources of joy in communities often defined by hardship.
Immediately after the police-involved death of Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015 Ashiah Parker, felt something. Though she did not know Gray personally, she felt connected to his story, and started volunteering with the No Boundaries Coalition. The nonprofit is based in West Baltimore, and works to transform the area by addressing both physical and mental barriers.
“The community wanted answers around what happened to their community member,” said Parker.
Nearly 10 years after her start as a volunteer, Parker is the executive director of the organization, actively planning events, coordinating with volunteers and watching the mission grow.
Parker is among many Baltimore women who have taken tragedy and transformed it into change.
In 2013 Tracey Malone lost her brother, Eddie Blick Jr., to gun violence in the Sandtown-Winchester community of West Baltimore. In 2017, Trannie Hayes was sentenced to the maximum penalty of 50 years in prison for the second-degree murder Blick.
After taking time to heal, Malone and her family founded Eddie B. Productions in 2021, a nonprofit organization inspired by her brother, who she described as “a kid who loved to give back to the community in any way he could.” Each year she organized annual givebacks in honor of his birthday in September.
It was at one of these givebacks that her focus changed when she learned the Lillian Jones Recreation Center—once a pillar of community for youth—had been closed for a year, leaving many children without any organized activities.
Malone and other residents began canvassing door to door, hosting meetings, petitioning city leaders and creating pop-up game days so children had space to play while adults organized.
The grassroots effort eventually transformed into the Sandtown-Winchester Community Collective, a collaboration consisting of 26 different organizations ranging from clergy to nonprofits and for-profit entities.
Parker and Malone see community as the key to transformation.
“People see me and say I am ‘tragedy,’ I am ‘unfixed,’ but I am healed because God decided to have people love on me in spite of everything that I’ve been through,” said Malone. “ Love is what pulled me through the hard times–family, friends, neighbors. Those are the people who pull you through when you’re going through. I’m just giving back what God gave to me.”
Parker echoed similar sentiments about the importance of organizing, especially in times of struggle.
“I know that the only person who can save our community is our community,” said Parker. “We’re going to have to find a way to win. To be able to do that, you have to stay in contact with your community. We have to plan. We have to do things that will help.”
Both women told the AFRO that leading entire organizations was not something they imagined themselves doing, but something that life events and changes helped them grow toward. What keeps them motivated when leadership gets hard, they added, is those who will follow in their footsteps.
“I always look at the people who are following me,” said Parker. “There’s a lot of people who depend on my leadership. I always try to stay moving forward so I can be an example for those that I lead and those who will be coming behind me and make sure that I’m doing all that I can to be a positive influence.”
For Malone, seeing the community believe in themselves and take action alongside her keeps her motivated.
“It’s just an amazing experience to know that even in a place where brokenness has happened, joy still exists,” said Malone. “We’re here to bring back the joy, the excitement, the understanding that this is a community that has been deserted for a very long time, but now they are believing in themselves.”
“Residents are taking action,” she continued. “They are showing up. They’re putting in 311 calls. They’re showing up at the meeting. They’re talking to the councilman. They’re reaching out to their senators. They are [the] active change in their community.”