Mayor Williams says violence has got to stop

The mayor wants to bring a ‘CeaseFire’ program to town.

YOUNGS-TOWN — Mayor Jay Williams says it’s time for him to have a heart-to-heart talk with the black community and get out his anti-violence message.

Most of the black community obeys the law, he said. The lawless ones need to hear how the breakdown of the family is part of the crime problem, he said.

Yes, there’s systemic racism, but those who chose the criminal lifestyle “exacerbate the situation,” Williams said Thursday. “You show me the lifestyle, and I’ll show you how it’s gonna end.”

Williams said that as a black man, there are things he can say that his white predecessors couldn’t and he, much as comedian and activist Bill Cosby has done, intends to do it. He also wants to invite Cosby to town — assured that his appearance would fill the Chevrolet Centre.

Cosby has been speaking at town hall meetings about the breakdown of the black family, high dropout rates, out-of-wedlock births and much more. His new book, co-authored with Alvin F. Poussaint, professor of psychiatry and faculty associate dean for student affairs at Harvard Medical School, is “Come on, People! On the Path from Victims to Victors.”

The mayor said graduating from high school should be a given.

“If not, pick out a jail cell or a crack house,” Williams said. “Kids having kids don’t graduate.”

Williams said the situation now — the blacks who pursue material gain and have no value of life — threatens to eradicate the hard-fought wins of the civil rights era. “I can’t see this go on; they’ve got to hear it from me or Cosby or whoever, but they’ve got to hear it.”

The mayor said that for about a month, he has been working to bring in speakers to explain a program called CeaseFire that he wants to try.

According to online reports, CeaseFire’s violence prevention strategy combines community mobilization, outreach, faith leader involvement and police participation to reduce violence in the same way that other serious health threats — such as AIDS and tuberculosis — have been addressed.

The innovative program relies on clergy and community leaders, including some former gang members with strong ties to high-risk individuals, who work together to interrupt conflicts and to change behavioral norms in the community.