Second-line group won’t bow down to violence

    When the bullets began whizzing past his head at Frenchman and North Villere streets on Mother’s Day – popping like firecrackers on the Fourth of July – Edward Buckner, a man born with a set of drumsticks in his hands and an icon of perpetual motion, froze.
    For a split second, the former McDonogh 35 drummer, Willie Hall Playground football coach and leader of the Big 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club could not absorb the scene. All around him, unsuspecting second-liners hit by the spray of bullets from young men with loaded weapons and no conscience hit the asphalt.
    Others lucky enough not to be hit fled instinctively in the other direction or dove for the ground, just like they teach you in basic training for the Marines.
    Get low, get low.
    In keeping with the staccato gunfire that injured 19 people May 12 but miraculously did not kill anyone, Buckner’s memory of that day is all flashes:
    “I had just turned around to stop the band when that dude … I didn’t even move … I didn’t actually see the shooter … I just moved … I couldn’t hear anything but the flow of the crowd … It was like a stampede of people … Footsteps, people trampling you to get out of the way … When I fell, it all got silent … My wife and daughter were telling me, ‘Get up!’ … I may have laid there a minute, trying to compose myself and figure out what happened … When I got up, I walked around to every person I could, and that was the most heartbreaking thing that my heart ever felt.”
    What Buckner saw were 19 people, including a pair of 10-year-olds, bleeding from bullet wounds. In his short life, one of the youngsters, Ka’Nard Allen, has seen his father stabbed to death, allegedly by his stepmother. And last May 29, when Ka’Nard turned 10, his birthday party made national news when gunmen sprayed his front porch, killing his 5-year-old cousin Briana Allen and leaving a bullet wound in his neck.
    “He feels like he can’t have any fun,” Buckner said. “He has to be thinking, ‘Every time I go to have fun, something happens and I get shot.’ That’s enough to traumatize anyone. But he is going to be helped by the community. The community loves him.”
    So what is a community to do? For his part, Buckner said the Big 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club is not bowing down to the violence and will host a second-line parade on June 1 retracing the exact steps of the Mother’s Day parade.
    They have to, Buckner said.
    “We have to go back to that spot again and make it personal,” Buckner said. “We have to claim that spot. We are the community, and we cannot let what happened stop the culture. We’re going back as a unified force to send a message that we’re still not letting up. It may be June 1, but our eyes are still on everybody that got hurt.”
    Buckner, 53, is a realist. He knows some people will decide it’s too risky to join the second line, even with the addition of “spotters” to see if anyone is up to no good.
    “But I know for sure there will be a whole lot of New Orleans soldiers who are going to come out and stand up and say, ‘No more! We’re fed up!’” Buckner said. “We’re going to second line and demonstrate and march in a way that people have never seen before. It’s going to be beautiful – white, black, Asian-Americans, Indians. We have to come together to stop this.”
    Buckner doesn’t have the answer. In his day, growing up in the St. Bernard project, there were community leaders who helped keep kids focused. He recalls a group called the Together Brothers – 15 to 20 boys – who were required to read several books and give reports in order to go on outings to City Park.
    The absence of male role models was particularly difficult, Buckner said, and that was exacerbated by the rules for a family to get governmental assistance.
    “I remember playing football in 1968 at the playground, and I had to go and move my daddy’s clothes out of the house because the housing authority inspector was coming to make sure there was no man living in the house,” Buckner said. “Every boy needs that man. He needs discipline and love.”
    Buckner has been trying to provide that by volunteering as a football coach at Willie Hall Playground. When he saw the picture of 19-year-old Akein Scott, one of the brothers accused in the Mother’s Day shooting, Buckner said his heart broke for the awesome potential unrealized.
    “When I look at how strong that boy is and as big as his body is, that boy could be a tight end or a good outside linebacker on somebody’s team,” Buckner said. “I looked at a whole lot of potential that body had, but he didn’t have any brains. I would’ve worked on his brain. It’s a process of time and patience. I would’ve overwhelmed him at some point. He needed a mentor a long time ago. Whoever was his mentor, he didn’t believe in him. He believed in the street.”
    Buckner has been teaching nine kids how to create Mardi Gras Indian costumes from scratch, a process that takes 10 months and dedication. The young group is called the Red Flame Hunters.
    “That gives them time away from looking at the street corner and what they could do if they had drugs to sell,” Buckner said. “I’m teaching what I had taught to me.”
    While the church continues to pray for a solution, the funerals of too many young men whose lives end with a bullet at 20 are a testament to societal failure.
    “These folks have been praying for a long time, and they’re still burying people,” Buckner said. “We keep burying these young bodies. Those services are passing through the neighborhoods and those churches.”
    So, “What Would Jesus Do?”
    “Jesus is going to whip our butts,” Buckner said. “We need to pray that with all the efforts we are making, we can tolerate one another in these challenging times. We’re all going to come through this.”
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].