Pubdate: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 Source: Times-Picayune, The (LA) Copyright: 2002 The Times-Picayune Contact: http://www.nola.com/t-p/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/848 Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1942/a02.html FINDING THE RESOLVE How much would you give to make your violent neighborhood safer? Would you put it all on the line like Baltimore's Angela Dawson did? Mrs. Dawson, who lived in an area of East Baltimore called "The Badlands" made it her mission that there be no drugs deals conducted within sight of her children. She called police when she saw drug activity and stood on her front stoop like a modern-day Jeremiah, condemning the evil she saw around her. Mrs. Dawson was killed Wednesday morning. So, too, were five of her children, ages 9 to 14. They burned to death when their home was set on fire. Mrs. Dawson's husband survived but has third-degree burns over more than 80 percent of his body. Police arrested a neighborhood drug pusher and booked him with six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of arson. The man arrested is believed to be friends with a drug dealer Mrs. Dawson recently testified against. When America's 20 largest cities are compared, Baltimore emerges as the most violent. For every 100,000 residents there, police record 39 homicides and 2,272 violent crimes. With that history of violence and with the almost total obliteration of the Dawson family, some people in the neighborhood are predicting that no one will dare speak out against the drug dealers again. But it would be a shame if the Dawsons died in vain, if their deaths signaled nothing more than a greater resolve to stay indoors and double the number of locks on the doors. It might be best to compare the reign of terror that now exists in certain cities -- New Orleans among them -- with the lynchings and other acts of racial violence that defined the Jim Crow South. Those who were under siege banded together and took to the streets. Their mantra, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around," was as lyrical as it was heartfelt. Many people died. But the resolve that kept people moving forward when Medgar Evers was killed in Jackson, when the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed in Birmingham, when Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were killed in Philadelphia, Miss., must be rekindled. No, the fight to get heroin dealers off the streets is not identical to the fight to win equal protection under the law, and there's no sense pretending that the strategies used to defeat segregation can be applied unaltered to the fight against violent drug dealers. But at the same time, fear is fear, and if citizens could be brave in the face of the Ku Klux Klan decades ago, then they should be able to be brave before the neighborhood drug dealers of today. That's not to suggest that martyrdom should be anyone's goal. Mrs. Dawson wasn't looking to die, and she admitted to her brother that she was afraid there would be repercussions for her testimony. Still, her selfless acts should be remembered, and her dedication should be matched by all the besieged people she leaves behind. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D