RACINE, Wis. — "I pledge... I will never bring a gun to school... I will never use a gun to settle personal problems or disputes."
That's the pledge Racine Unified students are being asked to make on Wednesday, the Day of National Concern.
Leading the charge on Day of National Concern is the Wisconsin chapter of Voice of Black Mothers United.
"We really want to stress the importance of gun safety and alternatives and different ways to resolve conflicts other than gun violence or violence of any sort," said the Wisconsin State Lead for the Voices of Black Mothers United, Nakeyda Haymer.
The pledge comes as Racine has seen an uptick in gun violence this year. According to the Racine Police Department, there were six gun homicides in the city last year. So far this year, there have been nine.
In just the last six weeks in Racine, a student was shot near a school, another was shot after a football game, and a student was caught with a gun inside of a school.
"There's just been a lot of younger victims lately. Just understanding that conflicts do arise even at young ages. It's okay to have disagreements, but handling disputes with a firearm is never okay," Haymer continued.
Haymer lost her brother to gun violence in 2017.
"Even though he lost his life that day, we're impacted by it every day... It's something that goes beyond the victims and the offender. It impacts neighborhoods, cities, and we gotta start somewhere," she said.
That's why she's taking her organization's message to middle schools in Racine and asking students to sign the anti-gun violence pledge.
It's something that Tanya Wooden is also passionate about after losing her son, Harry Canady, to gun violence when he was 20 years old.
"He was almost six feet tall, but everybody called him the gentle giant. He was loved by everyone," Wooden said.
Losing her child is a pain she hopes no other mother has to feel, but knows that many have shared in her pain. She has also lost several nephews and nieces to gun violence.
"There is nothing you can do to justify the killing of my son. Nothing that he could do. There's no way that you could justify a murder to me, period," Wooden said. "They made the choice that his life didn't matter. Which, it matters and it mattered tremendously to me."
She's also encouraging Racine students to make the pledge against gun violence and said, "I just pray that the community takes it seriously. Not just the schools, the school teachers, the parents, and the children."
