Derrion Albert: A Story Tied to Our Own

A young African-American male with cornrolls and a love for basketball walks home from an inner-city school in a south Chicago neighborhood and gets killed in a gang fight. What is the first thing that comes to your mind?

What if I told you that the young African-American male was an honor roll student, went to church Wednesdays and Sundays, and had planned on going to college? Now, what comes to your mind?

16-year-old Derrion Albert was walking home from school to a bus stop when he was brutually beaten by a group of youth as people sat and watched. Young Derrion was an innocent bystander who was never involved in gang activity. Furthermore, he did not even comprehend what was taking place. Three of his peers have been charged with first-degree murder for the crime.

Derrion Albert was a junior at Christian Fenger Academy High School. He loved wrestling and basketball. He also made good grades and was planning going to college in the future. Now what could have been a person beating the statistics, has become a statistic himself. How many of our youth are we going to let succumb to this type of action before we make a stance? Over 30 students were killed in Chicago last year, and the number might be surpassed this year. Hostile surroundings and negative living environments that foster the conditions for these crimes are just subject to this community, but all of our communities across America.

This story touches me so because I was Derrion Albert. I was that honor roll walking home on the east side of Jackson, Tennessee and the north side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. If you didn’t know, these two cities were in the top 10 most dangerous cities in the United States at one point and time. I know how it feels to try to get ahead and to be surrounded by those who are not. It is time that we stand up and make ourselves available to those who are trying to do better with their lives. Imagine if young Darrion Albert had a mentor picking him up from school and spending time with him? Imagine if those three youth who are being charged with that heinous crime had been too busy with after-school activities to partake in gang-related activities?

I hope this is a wake up call to our communities. Some blame the parents, the school, or the children involved in this crime. The real answer is we all are to blame. We all sit and ignore these problems in our communities. If you are waiting on the President to fix our problems, you are waiting in vain. The change has to come from the bottom up, not the top down. Our youth are in trouble and no one can save them but us. Children like Derrion become victims of violence or become disheartened everyday in a system where you cannot win. The only difference between Derrion and I is that I made it out alive and he did not.

Reach out your hand to the youth trying do better with their life and don’t be a bystander.
Be a part of the solution

--Written by Romane Goodlow
Murray State UniversityPublic
Relations Major