Drug prevention group hosts inaugural event against gun violence

Jun. 13—Twelve-year-old Ayshia Billingsley of Anniston sat in the front row of a mock funeral held in Zinn Park Monday morning. The funeral's purpose would hit closer to home for her than for some of the others in the audience.

Billingsley's father was gunned down in front of her grandmother's house on Valentine's day, she said. Against such violence, its causes and effects, Monday's event was formed.

The Agency for Substance Abuse Prevention partnered with barbers in several counties, including Calhoun, Cleburne, Talladega and Etowah, to host an event centered on preventing gun violence in the surrounding communities.

Over a dozen barbers spoke of their own experiences with this type of violence. ASAP focused on barbers due to the connection they have with their clients, which in the Black community is considered by some to be virtually sacred.

Sitting at the front of the plaza below the pavilion was an empty casket with a mirror placed inside. When visitors approached the casket to look inside, they would look down and see their own reflection.

ASAP Prevention Specialist Chandy Gordon said the purpose was to send a powerful message to anyone who might be or could become involved with the overlapping issue of drugs and guns.

Kids from several different community groups such as the Anniston Fatherhood Initiative and the Boys and Girls Club attended the event. Most of the chairs in the outdoor space were filled with young people and as the event began, more were arriving by the busloads.

To encourage participation in the event, ASAP raffled off a PS5 console, and brought in rapper and television personality Yung Joc to speak to the group.

"We all knew we wanted somebody who was influential and could make a big impact. So we all started discussing who we thought and [Seyram Selase] said Yung Joc, they reached out to him and immediately they were on board," Gordon said.

In his early career, Yung Joc's platform had bolstered violence and many of his songs were on the "rough" side, according to ASAP's CJ Abernathy. However, after years of rapping about things that he didn't want to advocate for anymore, the artist did a complete 180 and began to passionately speak against gun-related violence.

"I want to say this from the bottom of my heart — I woke up one morning and realized I didn't want to rap no more," Yung Joc said.

The rapper said that a few years ago he opened up a nightclub in his home city of Atlanta, where he employed both his son and his nephew at the club and the business was doing really well.

Yung Joc told his personal story of how his nephew was fatally shot one night at the nightclub. He told of how he had to hold his adult brother as he "cried like a baby" for the sake of his child.

"I felt like I had something to do with it. I felt like this guilt — this pain — that like, what if I wouldn't have walked away from him or maybe if he hadn't have walked out that door," Yung Joc said.

"Don't none of us in this space right now know what tomorrow brings," he said.

Though the rapper has a "nationally syndicated" morning television show, Yung Joc said he also finds himself speaking at a lot of events such as Monday's.

"Some of my own traumatic events of my life that have yielded my outlook against gun violence in our communities. It's pushed me into a position where I find myself in these situations whether I want to be or not. I'm there," Yung Joc said. "I feel like it's my civic duty to step up to the plate because I could have, myself, not been here."

Attendees were asked to form a line leading into the event space and hold a procession in front of the casket, dropping in handwritten notes as they passed. ASAP director Seyram Selase led the procession, followed by the barbers. The emotional display had many in the crowd in tears for their own fallen loved ones.

One such patron was Marica Cunningham, who lost her son to gun violence. Cunningham spoke to the group through tears about her personal story.

"The pain never stops," she said. "As a mother of a victim for six years, I was chosen for this day, because as I stand today I still feel the hurt for my one and only child."

The somber message of the event not only honored those who had died, but drove home the importance of gun-violence awareness to the children.

For news on future Barbers Against Bullets events and other ASAP initiatives, go to asaprev.com/home

Staff Writer Ashley Morrison: 256-236-1551. On Twitter: @AshMorrison1105.