The Valdosta Daily Times — VALDOSTA—A crowd of all ages and ethnicities converged on Serenity Christian Church Sunday night to get a young person’s perspective on the recent violence in Valdosta and Lowndes County.

Sponsored by the Valdosta Lowndes County Chapter Southern Christian Leadership Conference the forum opened with a short video titled “A War for Your Soul.”

The video is a satire on the history of blacks in America and how their perceptions of their place in society and among each other has changed over the years and not necessarily for the better.

The video showed graphic images of blacks that had been beaten and lynched and inspiring snippets from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Barack Obama.

The video left many in the church in tears and some openly sobbing.

Rev. Floyd Rose, President of the SCLC, passed out copies of the video to pastors and heads of youth organizations.

Pastor Leroy Henderson, was the moderator for the second half of the forum which brought a variety of people up on stage to discuss their experiences.

“There is room at the table for everybody,” Henderson said. “The fight is on the northside, southside, eastside and westside, it’s at your jobs, in your neighborhoods and in the schools.”

Minister Bobby Smith was the first to speak. From 1995 to 2004 Smith was a member of the Folk Nation Gang Disciples. He had been locked up 12 times, used cocaine for 10 years and stabbed, he said.

Facing 20 years in prison Smith said his life began to head down a different path.

“I wend down Route 66, the 66 books in the Bible from Genesis to Revelations,” he said. “I met a man named Jesus and he changed my life.”

There are five factors that shape a community, Smith said, parents, teachers, drugs, the system and the church.

The system is tough to break out of once in, he said.

Coming out on parole and probation the state wants one thing — money.

Money is hard to come by when a job is difficult to obtain due to a criminal record, Smith said.

Of those five factors, if drugs are removed and people come together as a community things can be changed, he said.

Smith said he goes into the communities here in Valdosta where others are afraid to go, even ministering to a yard full of Rolling 20 Crypts.

“They told me to keep doing what I’m doing,” he said.

Minister Reggie McQueen then related the story of his nephew’s last moments. On November 15, Sidney Bivens, 19, was gunned down outside of Hudson Dockett.

Not only was Bivens shot and killed, his brother was also shot when he stepped in front of the shooter and took two bullets, McQueen said.

A crime like this takes on a different meaning when it is no longer in the newspaper or on the news and at the front door, he said.

Bivens was a high school graduate, enrolled in college and respectful of his family and others, McQueen said.

The only reason Bivens brother didn’t take more bullets was because other people started shooting, he said.

“When I walked into the hospital both nephews had a 50/50 chance,” McQueen said. “God took the heart of the family for us to get our eyes back on the prize.”

Imagine walking into a room with a brother in a hospital bed saying their was more that he could have done, McQueen said.

“Its just started next Saturday at two we will watch him laying in a casket, the last time in the flesh we will see him.”

McQueen said he didn’t want anybody to feel sorry for him and told the audience not to shake or be doubtful about God.

Dante, who did not give his last name, is a member of the Bloods in New York City. He is down visiting family and agreed to be a part of the forum to share his experience as a member of the Bloods.

Dante said he didn’t feel he was part of a gang but rather an organization. Some do bad things but the organization represents a family, he said.

The first time he was hugged by a man and told ‘I love you” was shortly after becoming a Blood member, he said.

“Then he said ‘welcome home,” Dante said. “That meant something to me.”

If people don’t want their children to be in a gang they need to step up and be a parent, he said.

“If you don’t know how to be a parent take classes,” Dante said.

Steven Gill, a member of Poetic Magic, then shared with the audience.

Recently at a poetry reading in the woods on the border between Lowndes and Lanier counties, a group on four-wheelers sat on the other side of the river and yelled racial slurs and profanity.

Gill said he believes there are a lot of people scared to talk about the issues today’s youth are facing and scared to address them in a contemporary manner.

“Antique minds stuck in antique times,” he said. “They don’t want to hear the truth.”

How is the community going to reach the youth through a heavenly father when they don’t have an earthly one, Gill asked.

Dr. Angela Manning of New Life Ministries then closed out the forum. She gave an impassioned speech urging the community to not only pray but to get up, get out and get active in affecting the change that is needed.

“It’s not a white thing or a black thing, it’s the right thing,” Manning said.