This is an opinion column.

Shhhhh. Listen.

That sound you hear. That sound … that … silence.

It’s Birmingham’s business community. It’s our business leaders. It’s the folks atop the companies that are at the apex of the city’s economy and the region’s growth. Companies that drive Birmingham metro’s status as the eight-cylinder engine in the state’s GDP, generating one of every three dollars, more than any other region.

Birmingham is hurting. Crying out for healing. For justice. Just as it has before, through generations of indignities and attacks—some from without (almost 500 police shootings of mostly Black residents in the first half of the 1900s), some from within (gang killings in the late ‘80s-early ‘90s that racked up homicides at a rate rivaling today’s spate of gun violence).

Though now, in this uniquely perilous time, Birmingham is hurting more than it ever has. Crying more than it ever has.

Shhhhh. That sound … that … silence.

It’s been more than three weeks now since the mass shooting on a Saturday outside Hush lounge in 5 Points South, precariously close to a few of those business leaders’ fav food spots.

If handwringing made a sound our ears might bleed. I’m sure “What should we do?” has been asked so many times in corporate conference rooms, the chorus would drown out the Sunday morning praise team.

Shrugged shoulders, however, won’t cut it. Not right now. Not anymore. Not when neighborhoods are still hurting, still crying. Not when shootings and killings continue as if Hush never happened.

Not if Birmingham, geographically (the city) or psycho-graphically (every zip code within 30 minutes of downtown), is to endure. If it is to heal. If it will see a diminishing of the shootings that now seem unabating, unbridled, unsolvable, and, worse, unchallenged.

Step from behind the curtain

To be sure, it is certainly not the business community’s task to cure Birmingham’s gravest ill. Diagnosis and treatment lie squarely with elected officials locally, regionally, and statewide. With the mayor, city councilors, county commissioners, and state legislators (too many of whom are more concerned with smothering libraries than saving lives).

Thus far, all have fallen short. Peace and policy wasn’t enough. They’d tell you that themselves. Or they should.

Yet business leaders in the region can no longer remain mute as they have in the generations since white flight twisted Birmingham into a tenuous racial tightrope. They can no longer remain behind the curtain—like the great and powerful Oz. They’ve served on boards and written checks. Won’t cut it. Not right now. Not anymore.

At least the wizard spoke.

Our corporate and entrepreneurial titans must do the same. They must step from behind the curtain and become visible and vocal partners in this critical battle against the scourge of gun violence.

Against the pain.

What should we do?

Start here: Deploy your well-paid lobbyists to pressure lawmakers into banning trigger switches and, yes, reversing permit-less carry. A bill calling for the former to be a state law should have passed during the last legislative session, and the latter was yet another petty action railroaded through by Alabama Republicans, even as it flew in the face of common sense and was not supported by law enforcement.

Show your real juice, business leaders, by imploring Gov. Kay Ivey to call lawmakers to Montgomery now to address trigger switch legislation in a special session before the holidays rather than waiting until 2025. Every day when owning a gun with a trigger switch violates state law likely saves a life.

Business leaders, show us who you are. Show your faces and lift your voices. Show us that you view the people in Birmingham to be as pertinent as profits.

In Atlanta Chick-fil-A heir and Board Chair Dan Cathy and Home Depot founder (and Atlanta Falcons owner) Arthur Blank are ebullient, visible, almost giddy cheerleaders and supporters of their city. By contrast, most of us wouldn’t know the heads of Alabama Power, Protective, Regions, Brasfield & Gorrie, Spire, Vulcan Materials, PNC Bank, Altec Industries, Shipt, Buffalo Rock, or any of the other biggest enterprises that help drive Birmingham’s still growing economy if they were in line with us at Wal-Mart.

A big if, I know.

Come on out from behind the curtain y’all.

A Public/private partnership for peace

What should we do?

Successful public-private partnerships are not new to Birmingham and have long thrived. They helped build and still support several of the city’s signature gems, including Railroad Park, the zoo, Regions Park, the Civil Rights Institute, and plethora of other locations.

Now such a partnership must convene to build peace. To rebuild lives.

Checks are still needed, of course. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin has revealed a long-overdue plan to address the shortage of police officers, including higher signing bonuses and enticing incentives to lure officers from other cities and states.

Woodfin says it will cost $15.8 million. The city plans to utilize reserve funds.

Business leaders, help pick up that the check.

Here’s another thought: Help ensure that ‘intercession” programs that keep Birmingham City Schools open during fall, winter, and spring breaks do not disappear due to lack of funding. Since being launched in 2021, and funded by the manna of federal dollars that flowed post-COVID 19, the sessions, as reported by my colleague Rebbeca Griesbach, provided K-12 students with continued learning at times when children are susceptible to distractions and, well, forgetfulness.

Results? Boosted learning in English language arts and math for students who participated.

BCS says about 7,000 students signed up this fall, almost four times as many as three years ago (1,800).

The program has cost $12 million since its inception and now, with fed money disappearing, BSC is scrambling to fill the gap with grants, state and local money, and donors.

Business leaders, help pick up the check.

Mayor’s proposed plan

The most vital opportunity to finally, effectively address gun violence lies with the mayor’s recently-revealed public health-oriented plan that is still in the nascent stages. Woodfin partially outlined the multi-layered plan to the council last week and it was further fleshed out later that day in a presentation to the council’s public safety committee by Uche Bean, from the mayor’s Office of Community Safety Initiatives.

He also addressed it on social media on Monday.

One component expands the hospital-based violence intervention program beyond the UAB trauma center, where it has been since being initiated in May 2023. It provides gunshot victims who survived their wounds with a way out of “the life” if they choose to pursue it. According to Bean, out of 127 victims who chose to enter the program, 85 remain in it, and among them, there are zero retaliations, re-incarcerations, and zero participants have been shot again.

Woodfin seeks to expand the program to the UAB emergency room (and potentially another hospital), where information would also be shared with gunshot victims’ family members and loved ones — “another touch point,” Bean said.

Last year, councilor J.T. Moore was not a whole-hearted supporter of the program, feeling the emphasis should be on reaching victims before they’re shot. Last week, however, Moore, in maybe the most salient observation amid the weeks, months, and years of senseless killings, unflinchingly backed expansion, citing results. “People lie, bodies don’t,” he said.

But the most significant tentacle in the strategy is a community-based public safety plan based on a successful model discovered during a nationwide tour of cities that have reduced gun violence by City Councilor LaTonya Tate, who heads the public safety committee, and Bean. Its birthplace is Newark, New Jersey, and it’s deployed in varying forms in numerous cities.

It’s about time.

Community-based street teams

The Newark Community Street Team (NCST) employs people from the most violent neighborhoods who’ve been previously ensnared in the system—many were once incarcerated—as trusted interventionists whose relationships within communities help them ferret out and squash beefs before they become body bags and aid in solving crimes. It targets those most at risk, including oft-forgotten victims of crimes: family members, loved ones, and neighbors.

Think of it as people closest to the problem being closer to the solution.

In Newark, the program was initiated as a grass-roots community effort in 2014 and formalized a year later under Mayor Ray J. Baraka. The city has since seen a 60% reduction in “fatal and non-fatal gun violence,” according to Bean, including record-low homicides between 2016 and 2020.

“Within the first four years they saw a thirty percent reduction in shootings,” she said.

In a December 2020 evaluation of NCST by the Luskin School of Public Affairs at U.C.L.A, it was concluded: “Outreach workers and high-risk interventionists were strongly identified with their work and the idea of bringing peace and preventing violence in their neighborhoods as well as in the city of Newark. … [Formerly incarcerated workers] felt that their work represented a chance to help ‘heal’ and ‘bring peace’ to their communities.

“Despite initial uncertainty and mistrust, residents and community stakeholders have embraced NCST, and now view it as a vital part of the Newark community,” the evaluation also noted. “Its presence is counted as a community strength.”

Read the full evaluation here.

Bean noted similar declines in gun violence on other cities that have implemented the street team model, including Oakland (50% reduction), New York (63%), Baltimore (56%), Los Angeles (34%), and Richmond (66%).

Councilors at the public safety meeting expressed support for the plan being implemented in Birmingham, where it will be called “One Hood.”

“This took a lot of traveling,” said Tate. “I’m excited about what we learned just being in these cities … seeing how it works in real-time. This is complementary to policing and it can’t be done – let me say this for the record — the community has to play a major role. Community safety means just what it means: community safety. You have to be engaged in making your community safe.”

The mayor will ask the council to approve $1.5 million to fund a pilot. The overall cost is $2 million; $500,000 has been reallocated from funds already approved, Bean said.

That’s couch-change for a city whose FY24 budget was $554 million—and not reflective of the desperation we face.

What should be requested—and approved—is at least $5 million, or whatever amount is needed to ensure the program is viable and sustainable. Sustainable beyond this mayor and this city council.

It must be, too, an amount that tells the community—emphatically tells our aching, hurting community—that its leaders are serious about combating gun violence. Finally serious.

All of its leaders.

What should we do?

“We will look to our philanthropic communities to help support this work,” Bean told the committee.

Business leaders, come out from behind the curtain. Come out with your voices. And your checks. Commit to matching whatever the council approves to implement “One Hood” and expand hospital intervention.

Consider it a long-term investment in the city’s preservation.

“We didn’t get here overnight, and we certainly are not going to get out of this overnight,” Tate added. “It is going to take time. It’s going to take collaboration and a collective effort in partnership….”

Silence, from anyone, is no longer acceptable. Not now. Not anymore.

I was raised by good people who encouraged me to be a good man and surround myself with good people. If I did, they said, good things would happen. I am a member of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Hall of Fame, an Edward R. Murrow Award winner, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj.