Milwaukee: A City of Change

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Though Milwaukee is known for its many names: Cream City, Brew City, Miltown and so forth. Milwaukee is also known to be one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. Despite all that, we know what we need to work on to better our city. We have various of organizations working on different issues that not only affect our city but also other cities in the U.S. We have organizations that benefit both youth, adults and even a whole family. Currently, the ongoing protests of Michael Brown and Eric Garner is sweeping up the whole country causing riots and absolute horror to some states. Here in Milwaukee we also have our own Ferguson or Eric Garner case with a bit of a twist. On April 30, 2014 Dontre Hamilton, a 31 year old African-American was shot 34 times by a Milwaukee Police Officer named Christopher Manney. Since the incident, the Hamilton family held many protests across downtown Milwaukee to express their disappointment to the city's elected officials. With determination, city activists and concerned residents collaborated to continue their 8th month protest which sparked national attention for keeping it peaceful.

  The latest protest for Dontre Hamilton was held earlier this afternoon. Though it has been done for several months the people not even once attempted to express any anger toward the city or elected officials. Milwaukee residents are known to come together and support each other in periods of hardship and disappointment. Last Wednesday, I was invited to attend the 2nd annual Milwaukee Come Together Gun Violence Summit as one of the city's youth activist dedicated to bring a more tranquilized communities in our city. I was so surprised to see the many youth and adults who work with many of our devoted organizations who came to realize that as long as we have gun violence in our city, our youth would have no chance of succeeding anything. The Event was held at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Elected officials, educators, and many youth and adult activists were also there. This was not the only time Milwaukee has held such an event like this. This past summer, Miller Park, a baseball stadium held a back to school bash which was also established to build a good relationship between city residents and law enforcement. It was great to see many residents of different background interacting and having conversations with officers who also belonged to different ethnic groups. Unlike other cities in the U.S. where people are too afraid of police officers, Milwaukee is changing all that. We know what we need to do as a community in this lovely city we call home!

Milwaukee has one of the best youth councils in the world. Milwaukee Youth Council consists 15 dedicated high schoolers committed to bringing change within the city. These young leaders including me are assigned to our aldermanic district. We work with our Common Council members and our Mayor to legislate laws that help bring order and peace in our city. We also help to make sure Milwaukee's economic and social situation is under control. With the being said, Milwaukee as I said at the gun violence summit has began to change and is showing a great leadership to other cities and states. Recently, ABC's Nightline came to Milwaukee last week to observe whats going on in the city in terms of the Dontre Hamilton protest. People were curious to see that it had not created some sort of riot like the other cities holding protests right now. The true answer to such thought is that in Milwaukee, we know that violence only creates more violence. If the city had started with violence or turmoil much like Ferguson did, our economic development and children's future be in a bad situation. Our children will have this constant fear of not being able to go outside or even go to school because of a certainty of being unsafe. And if businesses were destroyed due to the violence, we wouldn't have jobs, people would be homeless which only leads to violence as Mahatma Gandhi once said that poverty is the worst form of violence.

We have the best mayor in the nation here to guide us and is always on our side. Mayor Tom Barrett always makes sure he comes to all the gatherings, discussions and summits the local residents invite him to. He is an advocate of preventing gun violence, he is also one of the founders of Mayors Against Guns. I met with him this past summer to discuss with him my solutions to help better our city. He was so interested he asked me to join the Youth Council and even took a copy of a paper which list many of my ideas to change our city and kept it. So yes, Milwaukee is truly  city devoted to change and peace and is becoming a symbol of leadership to some cities and I'm proud to say that its not just the officials and politicians who are making this happen but the people of Milwaukee who are linking up and leading the way. I can't tell you how proud I am to be a part of such hardworking city!







                                       WISN 12 News

                                      Dontre Hamilton death gaining national attention

                                      ABC's Nightline Report

                                      2014/12/12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVNSKBILAb4

Stephen A. Crockett Jr.

Officer Involved in Shooting of Unarmed, Sleeping Milwaukee Man Is Fired

The Root

2014/10/16

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/10/officer_involved_in_shooting_of_unarmed_sleeping_milwaukee_man_is_fired.html

James, Kust

Katie, Crowther

Milwaukee Police Department fires officer who shot, killed Dontre Hamilton

TMJ4

2014/10/14

http://www.jrn.com/tmj4/news/Police-Union-Officer-who-shot-killed-Dontre-Hamilton-has-been-fired-279330552.html

City of Milwaukee

Milwaukee Youth Council

Common Council

2014

Milwaukee Youth Council

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