'Music is such a big part of Paterson’s culture.' How group is using it to fight violence

PATERSON — Lisa Chowdhury believes that music can make the world a more peaceful place. That's how Saturday's "Healing Fest" — a music concert that promotes anti-violence in Paterson — came to be, she said.

“We noticed that the music — drill music — was one of the things facilitating the violence in the city,” said Chowdhury, director of the Paterson Healing Collective, the nonprofit group that organized the concert.

“Music is such a big part of Paterson’s culture,” she added, “and we have so much talent, so we wanted to create an outlet where these young people come together in a positive way.”

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The concert took place just as the city is experiencing a spike in gun violence, with eight shootings in two weeks. Chowdhury is hoping her festival, which drew more than 300 attendees, can refocus the city’s residents for the summer months, a time of year associated with an increase in urban violence.

At the opening of the event, she announced the Summer Peace Challenge, asking for a citywide cease-fire from now until September.

The first Healing Fest concert happened in 2021, a year when Paterson endured a record-setting number of homicides. Chowdhury said for that event the Healing Collective had one rule for its performers — no drill music, a genre of rap that tends to glorify rivalries, also called "beef," and gang activity.

"We went to different neighborhoods and asked them, if they wanted to participate, to make sure their music didn't have lyrics about beef," Chowdhury said. "On that day, we had people from neighborhoods that wouldn't have been in the same place if not for the event."

The Healing Collective still discourages the playing of drill music at its concerts.

Many of those in attendance on Saturday, including Stacey Jones — whose 11-year-old daughter  Amiyah won the dance-off — are supportive of Chowdhury’s work, having experienced their own personal tragedies. “I have family members who have died of gun violence,” said Jones, who lives in the 4th Ward.

More: Once again, few attend Operation Ceasefire peace march in Paterson

An event like this also helps build trust between the Healing Collective and community members that can pay dividends later. One of the best tools an outreach worker has when approaching gunshot victims is familiarity, according to Samiyah Abdullah, victim support specialist.

“A lot of times when we meet the victim, we already know them,” Abdullah said. “At that point it may not be as hard to get their buy-in.”

More to life than seeking vengeance

That’s what happened in the case of shooting victim Zymire Wilkerson, who spoke to Paterson Press about his recent experience with the Healing Collective at the concert. When the 16-year-old regained consciousness in a hospital bed at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center, after suffering six gunshot wounds last year, the last thought in his mind was forgiveness.

But over the course of a few months, 19-year-old outreach worker Timere Jones helped convince him that there was more to life than seeking vengeance. Jones and Wilkerson had been friends when they were younger, but ended up in rival groups in Paterson, and now are part of the same anti-violence effort. Wilkerson is one of the youngest outreach members at the Healing Collective.

“I got caught up in the streets,” said Wilkerson, who said he still has a bullet lodged in his back. “The program made me see there’s a better way. I would’ve ended up in jail.”

Chowdhury calls her outreach workers, many of whom are teenagers, “neighborhood heroes” who “put their lives on the line.” Their job, which requires them to go to the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods often in the aftermath of a shooting, is not for the faint-hearted, said Casey Melvin, one of the organization's founders, about the perils of their position

“You can’t step into the wrong territory and engage the wrong people,” Melvin said. “You have to understand the signs of danger.”

Anti-violence outreach

The Paterson Healing Collective was founded in 2020 and became Passaic County’s first program to implement a method of anti-violence outreach in which they visit gunshot victims at their hospital bedside. The last two years have been a windfall for the nonprofit, winning $2.6 million total from both the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office and the federal government, allowing the group to expand its programming.

Even more funds could be on the way, after the state Legislature passed the Seabrooks-Washington Community-Led Crisis Response Act Bills earlier this year. Named in part after the Healing Collective’s former outreach worker Najee Seabrooks, who was fatally shot during a police standoff, this measure will disperse $12 million to programs in six counties, including Passaic.

Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, who sponsored the bill, said at Saturday’s event that the Healing Collective’s track record played a large part in getting the bill signed. “This is not easy work,” Sumter said. “We knew we had a resource that could handle responsibly delivering the services in our neighborhoods and to our community.”

Saturday's concert featured 18 musical performers, some of whom are closely connected to the organization's mission. A Pressure, the Paterson-born rapper whose real name is Jayshawn McDowell, has teamed up with the Healing Collective for neighborhood events in the past. In one of his best-known songs, “You & I,” McDowell proclaims that he “never had a goal to be a shooter.”

One of the reasons interventions among rivals is so important, McDowell said, is because many disputes are founded on miscommunications that spiral out of control. “Forgiveness is one of the hardest things to do,” he said. “I live by example.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson Healing Collective concert promotes peace amid shootings