I’ve watched violence hollow out neighborhoods and I’m convinced the fix isn’t another speech from City Hall or another study; it’s opportunity. This piece comes from two decades of pastoring on the South Side, seeing funerals and the empty shoes left behind, and from a plan to turn a place known for pain into one known for purpose. I’m pursuing a real pipeline of jobs, skills, faith, and responsibility — and I’ve been walking across America to fund a center that will deliver it.
For more than twenty years I’ve lived among the people who bear the brunt of street violence, and that experience is not an abstract statistic. I remember the first time I saw a body in the street, shoes peeking out from under a sheet, and I have led funerals for too many young lives cut off way too soon. Mothers in that neighborhood have buried children and walked back to the same block because there was nowhere else to go.
The place itself carries the weight of that violence, its nickname a grim reminder of what happened there. Calling a block by the name of a gunned-down gang member keeps the wound fresh and gives the wrong kind of honor. That’s why labels matter and why replacing a name can start to change a story.
People often want a quick fix and they look to politicians for soothing promises, but empty words don’t heal. Press conferences and bleeding-heart pledges have not stopped the shootings and they won’t create futures. Real change requires more than headlines; it needs a shift in what a neighborhood expects for itself.
The solution I keep coming back to is simple and stubborn: opportunity. When people have jobs, training, and hope, the incentives shift away from crime and toward building a life. Opportunity gets folks on the computer and in classrooms instead of on a corner with nothing to do.
Too much of what passes for help since the 1960s has been pity that keeps people stuck and reliant on the government. That cycle of dependency deadens ambition and severs people from the American engine of upward mobility. Conservatives should insist on restoring dignity through work, not through ever-expanding handouts.
That’s why I want to rename the block Opportunity Block. Romancing violence is weak and self-defeating, and it gives power to the wrong stories. Turning toward opportunity is hard, but it’s life-giving and it aligns with faith and responsibility.
As Shelby Steele says, “Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn’t come before.” That truth underpins everything we’re trying to do, and it’s a message that a nation built on liberty should never stop making plain.
I am not speaking in abstractions. I’ve been walking across the country to raise $25 million to complete a Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center that will open real doors. The center will teach trades, tutoring in math and reading, financial literacy, and biblical guidance that reinforces character and accountability. This is about building pipelines to work and to faith, not handing out short-term fixes.
The path of opportunity is exacting and demands sacrifice from those who take it, but that is where dignity is found. It requires people to take risks, to believe in a future they cannot yet see, and to reject excuses that justify failure. Embracing American values of hard work and self-reliance separates a life of freedom from a life of dependency.
Success on this path changes families and neighborhoods for generations. Young people who find steady work and purpose are far more likely to form stable households and pass on a tradition of effort and faith. That is how a community moves from survival to thriving.
When opportunity flows into a neighborhood, violence follows it out the door and the boarded-up windows come down. Conversations shift from grievance to plans, and streets fill with people who have reasons to believe in tomorrow. I’m betting my life on that change, because I’ve seen too much suffering to accept anything less than a full, practical reclaiming of hope.
