Boston pastor fights crime with peace
Reverend Culpepper and MC Spice [photo: Starr Watkins/Shakur Multimedia] |
Pleasant Hill Baptist Church sits atop a hill in Roxbury, Massachusetts at the corner of Humboldt and Waumbeck streets. This area is known to so-called gang members as "H-Block". What was once a gang of teens who represented the whole of Humboldt and the surrounding streets, "H-Block" has been divided into two sections as of late. Now there's "HB-1" and "HB-2" and they are officially "at war". According to Reverend Culpepper, most of the street wars stem from "beefs" about girls. In fact, the pastor says there's a 75% chance that most or all of the beefs are caused by some friction about a girl and how some of the young men are trying to impress them with their "gangster".
But Pleasant Hill Baptist Church does not run from these so-called gang-bangers. Instead, Reverend Culpepper meets the violence and crime head-on and during the fourth year of the annual Peace Cookout held at Trotter Park directly across from the church, families and neighbors gather for food, music, fun and prayer. This year's cookout was attended by City Councilor Tito Jackson and former WILD-AM deejay Rudy Dottin played music. A member of Boston's Ten Point Coalition, Reverend Culpepper is dedicated to stopping the violence by getting involved in the daily lives of the teens troubled by violence and showing them another way using God's word and God's love.
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