There are many people from my community, who would say "I, Jamira Burley had made it". That despite the odds and with the support of mentors, I had become more than my zip code, more than the expectations society deemed people from my community deserved. That although my father is serving life for murder and my mother is watching yet another one of her sons get swallowed up by the criminal justice system. That this black girl from west Philly had arrived. But I knew differently, I knew that any success I have or will achieve, dimmed in comparison to the destitute position communities like mine are still in. That violence still plagues streets where children play, that my neighbors are still cut off from resources and that schools like Overbrook High School have graduation rates that we all should be ashamed of. Everyday I'm forced to face those realities because my family still live in the community where, just thirteen years ago, my 20 year old brother Andre was murdered. There were no hashtags then; no marches in his name and since then, more people have lost their lives to this growing epidemic of gun violence. At 15, when no one else would, I became an advocate for Andre and in the years that have followed, even I, started to believe that violence could no longer touch those I love. Oh, how I was wrong. Four months ago, when I decided to leave my job as the Manager for Gun Violence Prevention and Criminal Justice Reform at Amn
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from Breaking News http://ift.tt/2eGSt7L
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