I've seen the bodies on my block — and I know what really stops the killing

I have seen what violence does to a community.

For over 20 years, I have pastored on the South Side of Chicago at my New Beginnings Church. I remember the first time I saw a dead body in the street, a pair of Air Jordans sticking out from beneath a white sheet. I have officiated at funerals for young men and women who should have had decades ahead of them. I have watched mothers bury their children and then walk back to the same block where the murder happened because they had nowhere else to go.