A Peacemaker in the Making
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)March 20, 2009 by Sarah Blaskovich
La-Chanae McAfee is honored for being a local peacemaker. She organized a rally after two friends were killed in her San Diego neighborhood.
For a senior in high school, La-Chanae McAfee has endured considerable pain. About a year ago, her friends Donnell Davis Jr. and Brandon Johnson were shot to death on a highway in San Diego. About six months later, another friend—a girl—was shot and killed walking home from a party alone.
“Losing friends is a permanent scar,” McAfee says. “You learn to accept it, but I haven’t healed. I don’t think other people have healed either.”
Compelled to open the eyes of community members and political figures in her area, McAfee organized a peace rally. About 250 people marched past her senior high school to the “Four Corners of Death,” an intersection in McAfee’s town where someone has died on every corner. Participants wrote down suggestions to curb the violence in McAfee’s neighborhood, which she calls “very unsafe for teenagers,” and urged local politicians and community members to take action.
“Everything I do is in memory of someone who’s been killed,” McAfee says. “I don’t think kids should have to deal with things like this.”
Officials at the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) took note of McAfee’s hard work and began investigating how she has tried to make her neighborhood a safer place amid gang violence. For her efforts, the NCRC presented McAfee with the 2009 Local Peacemaker Award. She was joined by Senator George McGovern, who received the National Peacemaker Award.
“This [award] has opened a lot of doors to my school,” McAfee says, citing the national attention and donations Lincoln Senior High School has received. “I don’t think a lot of people at my school have been exposed to positive things like this.”
McAfee still mourns the loss of Davis and Johnson, two of her closest friends who were good students and had ambitions to go to college, she says. It was after dealing with the sudden loss that McAfee realized her community needed help. “I was at [Davis’] mom’s house, and [we] just waited for him to come in the house. He never will. I think a lot of people’s hearts were really heavy. It was time to break up the community and say, ‘Hey, listen.’ ”
With support from her mom, teachers and executives at the local YMCA, McAfee assembled a peace rally. On their walk, they also passed Willie James Jones Avenue, a street named after a student from their neighborhood who was killed on the night of his high-school graduation—the day before this valedictorian would move to northern California to attend Stanford University. A Los Angeles Times article from the 1994 incident recounts: “The killing of Willie Jones shocked and angered much of San Diego, particularly the African-American community, in which Jones had become a role model and a symbol of hope.”
McAfee remembered Jones’ story and encouraged community members to remember her friends in a similar way. She is organizing another peace rally in April to provide a positive, safe place for kids at Lincoln Senior High School to remember their fallen friends.
From McAfee’s involvement organizing two peace rallies, she has developed an interest in conflict resolution. “[College] is going to be a really hard struggle. Financially, we can’t do it, but I’m just hoping and praying,” she says, speaking of scholarships and help from FAFSA. “I’m interested in working for the NCRC someday. I didn’t know I was good at organizing something like this, but I’m already a mini-conflict resolution organizer in the making.”
She hopes to continue to be a source of hope for her community. “This was such an honor,” she says. “I look forward to the time when we can keep doing positive things for kids in my community. I want to celebrate those lives.”
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