Photo by Chris Sykes Reggie Miller, the coordinator of the Rutgers University Male Student Support Program at Orange Preparatory Academy, center, stands with a mother and son who recently lost a loved one — her husband and his father — to gun violence on National Gun Violence Awareness Day, Friday, June 2, during the Orange public schools event marking the occasion. Miller had a student rally on the steps of OPA with some help from school administrators and volunteers and then they walked across the street and formed a human chain of hope, resilience and resistance to guns and related violence around Central Playground, where many incidents involving guns have originated in the recent past.
Reggie Miller, the coordinator of the Rutgers University Male Student Support Program at Orange Preparatory Academy, center, stands with a mother and son who recently lost a loved one — her husband and his father — to gun violence on National Gun Violence Awareness Day, Friday, June 2, during the Orange public schools event marking the occasion. Miller had a student rally on the steps of OPA with some help from school administrators and volunteers and then they walked across the street and formed a human chain of hope, resilience and resistance to guns and related violence around Central Playground, where many incidents involving guns have originated in the recent past.
ORANGE, NJ — When National Gun Violence Awareness Day was observed on Friday, June 2, Reggie Miller, the coordinator of the Rutgers University Male Student Support Program at Orange Preparatory Academy, marked the occasion by hosting a student rally on the steps of the school, then organized a human chain across the street at the Central Avenue Playground, where so many gun-related incidents have occurred, as a sign of solidarity with the nationwide movement.
The official color of National Gun Violence Awareness Day is orange, another point of significance for its being observed in the city of Orange. The event’s roots go back to 2013, when a small group of teens at a high school in the South Side of Chicago asked classmates to honor the life of their murdered friend, Hadiya Pendleton, by wearing orange, the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves, and which symbolizes human life.
Chicago has seen such a recent rise in gun violence that has inspired a broad-based coalition of nonprofit organizations, corporate partners and elected officials to work toward reducing the number of shootings across the country.
“The young people in Chicago came up with the color and you know I love Orange and, if you cut me, I bleed orange,” said Miller on Friday, June 2. “Last year, when we did the silent protest, I didn’t know about National Gun Violence Day. I just typed in ‘gun awareness’ and that came up. I’m sitting there and I’m like, ‘Wow — I’m from Orange, the national color is orange, we have a gun problem in Orange, so we’ve got to do something.”
So Miller organized the rally on the steps of Orange Preparatory Academy on Friday, June 2. The event featured Dawan Alford reading a list of the names of city youth who have died due to gun violence in recent years and the human chain around Central Avenue Playground.
“Reggie Miller asked me to read these names. Does anyone know what they all have in common? They were all shot and killed in the city of Orange,” Alford said at the event. “A lot of these people were our friends, our students. A lot of these people were great people who were not involved in bad things. It goes to show that bullets, when they leave a gun, they not only pierce through bodies, they pierce through generations of trauma and fear that goes into different levels of our community, because it affects all of us. You don’t have to be the one gang-banging to feel the pain of losing a friend. And I think something we all have in common here in this community is pain and loss, because we’ve all kind of dealt with that.”
“Today we acknowledge a national recognition on gun violence, but I want you all to know that, in the city of Orange, gun violence is probably one of the highest in the country per capita, talking about how much gun violence happens in a small space that we live in,” Alford said. “It’s really a bad thing, so I want us all to do our part. I want you all to know that change starts with us — with each of you, with myself. You can’t talk about anything if you’re not going to do it yourself.”
“I’m a good child,” Joshua Arthur, an Orange Preparatory Academy student, said Friday, June 2. “I don’t do anything bad. I don’t follow other people. I’m a good leader and I don’t play around with guns or mess with them.”
Amari Eubanks, 14, an eighth-grade Orange Preparatory Academy student who said science is her favorite subject in school and that she wants to be an orthopedic surgeon when she grows up, said she agreed with Miller’s rationale for organizing the National Gun Violence Day event.
“I like brotherhood, because my brother is black, my father is black, so I’m just afraid that they might just get shot by gun violence,” said Eubanks on Friday, June 2. “I’m very proud of being involved in this event. I haven’t been involved in many of these things, because there haven’t been many, but I’m proud to be doing this today.”
Michael Esquerre, a social studies teacher at Orange Preparatory Academy, said he joined in the event because it was the right thing to do and also a good lesson in civics, positive protest and activism for students.
“People always try to come together and make change and that’s what we’re here for,” Esquerre said at the event. “We’re here to teach the kids that it doesn’t happen by ourselves and, even though it sounds cliche, it definitely does take a village and it starts with education. Our ancestors fought for an education so that we can be better in society and all this fighting and people killing each other and violence and people pretty much breaking each other down and breaking the community down doesn’t help.
“It’s about community building and trying to work with everybody within the community and trying to bring everybody together, because this violence is nonsense. These are the same kids that all went to school together. Their families know each other. They played against each other on the basketball courts, so it’s not like they’re strangers. They know each other. It’s a small world and a small community, so we need to stop with the nonsense.”
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