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The Rev. Ennis Tait delivered a passionate plea Sunday evening for the Pittsburgh region to join together to stem the youth violence plaguing neighborhoods and taking lives.
“It's your responsibility,” Tait repeated several times during his sermon at the Urban League of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA) Sunday celebration in Downtown Pittsburgh's August Wilson Center for African American Culture.
“It starts at home,” emphasized Tait, a pastor in Avondale, Ohio, and regional manager of four churches in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Nearly 400 people turned out for the evening of singing, preaching and discussing ways to reduce violence and strengthen communities throughout the Pittsburgh region. The Rev. Deryck Tines led a 40-person citywide choir in what he called “a strong celebration of African-American history through song.”
“Community support and unity is key to all that's going on and all the violence that's taking place,” said Curtis Lewis Jr., 40, of Monaca in Beaver County. Lewis, minister of music at Love Fellowship, performed a solo Sunday that got the audience standing and clapping.
As the mostly adult crowd galvanized Downtown against violence, another tragedy struck: Three juveniles were shot in a drive-by Sunday night while sitting on a police officer's front porch in Homewood. A teen on Saturday shot three people inside the Monroeville mall, and police arrested a 16-year-old Friday after he posted a selfie with the body of a teen he'd allegedly shot in the face.
The Urban League, part of a national organization, works to help people raise their incomes and standards of living. Sunday marked the 30th annual Urban League Sunday in recent history, but the local chapter says Pittsburgh was one of the earliest cities to host an Urban League Sunday in the 1920s.
Urban League of Pittsburgh President Esther Bush lauded Pittsburgh police Chief Cameron McLay for his recent commitments to improving relations between community members and police through steps such as giving officers more discretionary time to get to know neighborhoods.
Bush made a call for increased volunteerism and support for efforts to improve public education. She pointed to two education efforts she supports: the Campaign for Fair Education Funding goal to overhaul Pennsylvania's education funding formula by 2016, and the Lumina Foundation's goal to increase the proportion of working-age Americans obtaining a high-quality postsecondary degree or credential from 38.7 percent today up to 60 percent by 2025.
Bush lamented that the United States has fallen behind a dozen developing countries on key academic metrics, whereas 40 years ago, the United States ranked No. 1.
“This is not a black thing; this is an American thing,” Bush said to loud applause.
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