"The homicide rate for African Americans has soared during the past 50 years," says Fitz Hill of Little Rock. "Black males account for less than 7 percent of the American population, but they account for almost 50 percent of all U.S. homicides. The No. 1 cause of death for Black males 44 years of age and younger is homicide. Young Black men are 15 times more likely to be murdered than young white men. Let that settle for a minute.
"This is an epidemic. If it were happening to any other group we would be addressing this problem with urgency rather than just accepting it as the sad, seemingly unchangeable state of affairs for America's Black population."
Like me, Hill is an Arkadelphia native and graduate of Ouachita Baptist University. His older brother Shawn and I were in the same grade and became friends soon after the public schools were integrated when we were in the fourth grade. Little brother Fitz was always wise beyond his years. Not only was he a sports star in high school and college, he was a deep thinker and leader.
It didn't surprise me when Hill became a major college head football coach and later a college president. When he was president of Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock a decade ago, a student named Derek Olivier was murdered. That led Hill to form the Derek Olivier Research Institute for the Prevention of Gun Violence.
"Camera footage revealed a young Black male walking onto the Arkansas Baptist campus and murdering someone he had never met," Hill says. "He wore a long white shirt, brought out a weapon and opened fire. All but one person scattered upon hearing the shots, suggesting to those observing the video that the young men knew the sounds of gunfire from previous violent experiences."
"Derek must have been from the country," a witness later said. "He was the only one who didn't run when the shooting started. Everybody knew it was gunfire but him."
Olivier wasn't from the rough neighborhoods of New Orleans. He was from New Iberia in Cajun country.
"Derek was raised in a two-parent home where he was loved by his family and community," Hill says.
Hill told homicide detectives that he could almost guarantee that the shooter was a high school dropout, fatherless and unemployed. He was right.
"Although Derek's death took place 10 years ago, the pain is as raw as if it happened yesterday," Hill says. "But within the African American community, this kind of thing happens all too frequently. These events are rarely discussed. The systemic causes are rarely analyzed. We have come to accept these murders as just a sad fact.
"Political leaders have responded to the problem by getting tough on crime and building more prisons to lock up criminals. We appear to be satisfied with living in a society where substantial numbers of Black citizens are confined to prison."
Hill says he will never forget calling Olivier's parents on Sept. 27, 2012, to tell them their son had been murdered on campus. He even remembers the time: 7:27 p.m.
"My son was 12 years old at the time of Derek's death," Hill says. "I could only imagine the pain Derek's parents felt. I thought about how I would feel if someone called informing me that my son had been gunned down after we sent him off to college for an education."
Hill also will never forget what Olivier's mother said: "We told Derek after high school graduation that he had two choices: go to college or the Army. He chose college, and we buried our son."
Hill was driven to form the Derek Olivier Research Institute to study violent crime among Black males and then create strategic plans that draw attention to the problem and outline solutions. Hill points to four trends that have led to high rates of violent crime. They are:
• Breakdown of the Black family and the negative impact of that breakdown on the social development of Black males.
• High dropout rates for Black males.
• The neighborhood environment in which Black males are often raised. There's a lack of exposure to positive role models.
• The demise of Black-owned businesses, which decreases employment opportunities for young Black males.
"We have a problem, and people are perishing due to our lack of knowledge and intervention," Hill says. "The purpose of the Derek Olivier Research Institute is to implement a plan of action. We must create awareness and mobilize citizens to disrupt this plague that's rooted in the moral decay of our communities. It's time to act."
Hill points to violence in Chicago each weekend and says: "Let a foreign terrorist group infiltrate Chicago and see how long they last. But we allow all these murders to happen each week. We can do anything we want in this country, but we don't seem to have the will to address Black-on-Black crime. Why are Black leaders not speaking out about this day after day?"
Last Sunday, I wrote about Black-on-Black crime in Arkansas. Little Rock, Pine Bluff, Helena, Blytheville and other cities are infected with this plague. While city governments must address day-to-day problems through better police work, individuals and businesses can take a longer-term view through their charitable contributions. Rather than giving to national organizations and not knowing how the money is being used, it's better to give to entities inside the state with solid track records.
Contributions to the state's historically Black colleges and universities will provide the best return on charitable investments. In addition to Arkansas Baptist, there's the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Philander Smith College in Little Rock and Shorter College in North Little Rock. Not only can these institutions study the problems Hill has outlined, they also can help increase the size of the Black middle class. The surest route to the middle class is a college degree.
HBCUs make up only 3 percent of the country's colleges and universities, but they enroll 10 percent of all Black students and produce almost 20 percent of Black graduates. They produce 80 percent of Black judges, 70 percent of Black physicians and dentists, 40 percent of Black members of Congress and 25 percent of Black science professionals.
Delaware State University President Tony Allen and Tennessee State University President Glenda Glover wrote in column for The Washington Post: "Colleges and universities are often able to address their financial needs by drawing on endowments--donated funds invested on the institution's behalf. ... About 100 U.S. universities have endowments of more than $1 billion, and not one of them is an HBCU. Only seven HBCUs have endowments above $100 million.
"Despite these disadvantages, the United Negro College Fund calculates that HBCUs improve economic mobility for their students at a rate double that of predominantly white institutions. They achieve these results with tuition averaging 30 percent below predominantly white institutions while serving nearly double the proportion of Pell Grant-eligible students and substantively more first-generation college students than any other higher education sector."
Allen and Glover wrote that the HBCU model "for containing operating costs and reducing student debt without compromising quality should become the national standard for higher education. Clearly, there's work to be done, but HBCUs must no longer be expected to do more with less."
Want to have a real effect on Black-on-Black crime in Arkansas? Don't give money to fringe political groups such as Black Lives Matter. Give instead to one or more of the four HBCUs in the state.
"This battle is going to take the same type of intensity that we saw during the civil rights movement," Hill says. "I hope we're still capable of that in this country."
Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.