BALTIMORE PEACE PROMISE & LETRICE GANT
The Baltimore Cease Fire (Baltimore Peace Promise) is a volunteer organization founded to end the epidemic of violence. In May 2017, a Ceasefire started in Baltimore as a city-wide call asking Baltimore residents to avoid having any murders from Friday, August 4th through Sunday, August 6th, 2017.
Baltimore officially recorded its 300th homicide days before Thanksgiving of 2022.
According to a publication in the American Journal for Public Health (AJPH) published in April 2020,
"The Baltimore Ceasefire weekends may be an effective short-term intervention for reducing gun violence."
Throughout the weekend, community members are encouraged to organize peace-building activities, including helping one another connect to resources to address root causes of violence. These activities—which are voluntary—have included rallies, resource fairs, parties, vigils, and poetry readings. In addition, “sacred space rituals” are performed when someone is killed in the city, wherein groups of people visit murder locations to pray, burn sage, and express love in the spaces where someone has lost their life to violence. These efforts are directed at the city as a whole rather than any specific neighborhood. - AJPH, 2020
Letrice and I had an amazing conversation on LVL NXT Podcast and you can check out our discussion here. (link will be live by 2.01.23)