Sherdavia Jenkins PHOTO COURTESY OF FINDAGRAVE.COM

On Saturday, July 1, 2023 at 2:00 p.m. an annual Remembrance ceremony at Sherdavia Jenkins Peace Park on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (NW 62nd Street) at 12th Avenue, in Miami’s Liberty City district, will mark the 17th anniversary of that traumatic Saturday afternoon in 2006 when the relative quiet of the historic Liberty Square housing complex, affectionately known as “Pork ‘n’ Beans,” was shattered by sudden burst of automatic gunfire exchanged between two adult men. Neither of them was physically harmed, but a stray bullet struck the bright and promising 9-year old girl for whom the Peace Park is named as she played on the porch of her home. She died minutes later in her mother’s arms – too many parents’ worst nightmare.

The Remembrance, one of two gatherings each year with the Mach 22 springtime observance of Sherdavia Jenkins’ birthday, traditionally brings together concerned citizens and allies, regardless of official titles or social standing, in prayer and shared thoughts and reflections. The event promotes a common bond of resolve to create a better community, and concludes at 2:46 pm, the time of day that Sherdavia’s earthly life ended.

REMEMBERING ALL CHILDREN Sherdavia was the eighth child homicide of that year, which had just reached its halfway point in Miami-Dade County alone. The particularly senseless circumstances in which she was killed made her case a symbol of the far too many children taken from their families and community by homicides, mostly gunfire.

During the nine years during which Sherdavia lived, 1997-2006, 88 child homicides are officially recorded. Five-year-old Rickia Isaac, killed by a stray bullet on the Dr. MLK Jr. holiday in 1997, on Dr. MLK jr. Boulevard, as she walked home with her babysitter from the parade, died just two months before Sherdavia’s birth.

The annual Remembrances honor the memory of all of those whom we lost prior to, and since that nine-year period. All lives matter. On average more than nine children are killed in Miami-Dade each year.

A SMARTER, SAFER COMMUNITY The July 1 occasion not only honors children lost in the past and those yet to be born, but is also a yearly reminder, as we approach July 4th, of the equally senseless endangerment to the community that is posed by thoughtless firing of weapons to celebrate the holiday.

Bullets fired into the air do not vanish, they can reach as high as two miles and descend to earth with a velocity at ground level of 60 meters per second, or 135 miles per hour (110 mph is sufficient to penetrate skin), and although fatal results are not frequent, one death or injury is one too many.

Some pragmatic observers heighten that warning by pointing out in addition that not only is such reckless endangerment foolish, unnecessary, and ultimately criminal, but that in today’s increasingly divisive and racist political climate, guns and bullets might be better saved for defense of self and family, should it ever have to come to that.

Even more importantly, as other thoughtful observers point out, with or without the threat of dangerous enemies, the survival and well-being of any community depends on being smarter today than yesterday, changing with the times, and joining all healthy communities around the world that wisely honor, guide, protect, and defend their children, who are their hope and their future, and which practice and teach that awareness by the example of their actions.