'Big Brothers' see school halls, basketball courts as front lines of violence prevention

As Franklin High School nears the end of its school day, Justin Morris roams the halls engaging in various conversations. Everyone knows him.

He banters with administrators about the previous night's football game one moment, then breaks down local gang dynamics with a security guard the next. The conversation stops when a student walks by.

"How's your family doing man?," he asks a young man.

"Not good," the young man replies.

"When's the funeral?," Morris asks.

The young man drops his head. As he continues down the high school hallway, he replies, "I don't even know."

The normalcy of their exchange defines a year in which many cities saw their highest homicide numbers in recent memory. In Rochester, eighty-one people have been murdered at time of publication. An overwhelming majority of the victims have been young Black males.

Credible messengers like Morris, engage with young at-risk Black men to facilitate conflict resolution and create meaningful diversions in cities like Rochester, Chicago and Philadelphia, sometimes without official funding. 

Morris often shows up in Rochester's neighborhoods after a homicide occurs. Nonetheless, on the Monday before Thanksgiving at Franklin High School, his goal revolved around prevention.

"The kids coming home from jail, the most violent kids in the district, the most underperforming kids they all get sent here," Morris said. "A lot of the kids that have been murdered go to this school."

When the building dismisses, Morris heads out front to meet up with Anthony Hall, a Rochester native who has worked with the city as a youth gang intervention specialist. Hall is also known to show up when tragedy strikes communities.

"Two kids got killed from this school within the last month," Hall said. "The mobile crisis team should be housed here."

As students file out of Franklin, administrators and security keep a close eye out for potential trouble. Morris and Hall also want to prevent conflicts, but their approach is different — engaging with the youth as if they were everyone's big brother. Their relationships run deep, the kind of relationships they hope can stop violence before it develops.

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