Last Saturday July 10, a standing room only crowd of mostly young people packed into the 1,500 seat capacity auditorium of Shiloh Temple on West Broadway-many wearing T-shirts with a photo image -paying homage to their dead friend Anthony Lanell Titus. Titus became Minneapolis’ 26th homicide victim on July 4th after being gunned down just 14 days after his 16th birthday on the 2900 block of Freemont Avenue North.
According to his family, friends, coaches and mentors, Anthony Titus was a good kid who liked to hang out with friends, babysat for his mother, excelled at hockey and was preparing to start as a linebacker for the Roosevelt High School football team.
Anthony Titus Senior said that he is “devastated” by his son’s murder because his son was one of the good kids you always hear about. “It is real sad that something like this always happens to the good,” he said.
Many who hung out with Anthony affectionately called him by his knick-names “Phat Phat” as well as “Prince Charming.” His funeral service was one fit for a prince as the city’s top officials including Mayor R.T. Rybak, 5th ward City Councilman Don Samuels, and State Rep. Bobby Joe Champion and Shiloh Temple’s Bishop Richard D. Howell Jr. offered eulogies.
Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak, who attended the funeral with his mother, said everyone in the Minneapolis community should look upon Anthony as their own son. “Until we see that, this will not be the humanity that we need to have.”First accounts of the shooting said Anthony had been shot “inadvertently” and that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. On Tuesday July 6, 2010 there was a drive–by shooting at the Titus home on Thomas Avenue North as friends gathered to support the family.
Reportedly last Thursday police arrested an 18-year old New Hope woman in connection with the drive-by shooting based on witnesses accounts, which included the vehicle description and license plate number. Police are still trying to make a connection between Anthony’s murder and the drive by shooting. The arrest has prompted police to treat both shootings as “gang-related”.
“He was never in a gang or anything like that,” Titus Senior said of his son. “He was out in the streets only to go have fun with his friends. He was never out there being down and dirty and I feel he got the worse end of the stick.”
“Whoever the young man is that shot my son killed his brother,” Princess Titus said about her son’s murderer outside of her home last Friday. “He doesn’t know that he killed his brother because he doesn’t know himself.”
Anthony was shot on the block adjacent to St. Olaf Lutheran Church at the 2900 block of Emerson Avenue North-a place that offered Titus and many in the community opportunities to steer clear of bad elements within the troubled neighborhood.“He was a good kid with a bright future,” according to Pastor Dale Hulme of the St. Olaf Lutheran Church. Hulme coached Anthony and his brother Jessie in the New Direction hockey program sponsored by the church. He is a long-time friend of the Titus family and his children grew up and played with the Titus children on the North side.
“He was a friendly kid who may have known gang members. Any teen in this area may know gang members. There is a possibility that Anthony attracted the attention of threatening people,” Hulme explained. “Someone may have been dissed (disrespected) or just jealous of Anthony. Normal teen interactions may have caused someone to react extremely and caused a death. We have mixed feeling because we don’t want it to be random, but we don’t want the press or police saying it was gang-related.”
During Saturday’s funeral service Princess Titus offered many of the same sentiments to the youth she offered outside her home the previous afternoon. She focused on the unexpressed pain that many youth in the community harbor including the young man who shot her son.
“The young man who did this to my son is in pain… and I love him,” Princess Titus said. “That young man has a pain inside of him and he’s not able to tell anybody.”
Titus recounted her family’s history of struggling through the pain of addiction, prison sentences and abuse until finally moving to Minneapolis, from Chicago, to escape the pain and find herself.
“I am here and I am good and the reason I am good is because I have God,” Princess said. She said she felt Anthony was good because he too had Jesus in him. “And if you want some of my strength I can tell you where you can get it.”
Later, Princess urged the crowd to make her son’s life meaningful for themselves."You can all do what you want to do," she said. “My son’s gone from here, but if you really want to make his life worth something to you- because it was worth it all to me-you will take some time to look inside yourself because what is inside you is him if you are sitting here.”
Princess urged the mostly teen audience to find and accept their own individuality. “The only one that has to accept you is you,” she added. “And if God is in you, then you are good.”
Following the funeral service many of the young people signed up to be part of an upcoming Youth March to end violence in North Minneapolis.
Rybak said he saw “an incredible amount of hope” in the faces of the people who gathered around the open casket of Titus following the service. “We just had to do the hardest thing you had to do which is to bury a child. We did it in a room filled with the next generation of North Minneapolis which has resolved to get peace.”
The mayor said the city will do a lot more to put more police in the streets and continue to stop the flow of guns but admits that alone is not going to solve the problem. He said the community has to go out and do something with their grief and not to let another child die senselessly.
“The total solutions is in the hearts of these people in this room who will not let a death like this go in vain by doing this again,” Rybak added.
5th Ward City Councilman Don Samuels saw Anthony’s death as a reflection of our society and nation. “The nation is sick,” he said. “We as adults have failed our young people.”
Samuels said he believed God is calling upon the youth of North Minneapolis to lead us into peace through a “grass-roots” movement supported by the elders. He said we should do a better job to take interest in young people to seek out how they are dealing with their day-to-day lives rather than just taking interest in them when they get into trouble.
“I believe God wants a young person to step forward… through that intense feeling of grief and loss and by embracing the tragedy-provide leadership for the rest of our community,” Samuels said. “I am willing to step aside and let the young people lead us into the future of peace. It is your turn.”
Samuels added that he will look into resources to support the youth leadership and will begin by asking the superintendent of schools and the mayor to providing much needed grief counseling for the North Side.“The Titus funeral has been a little different,” said to Dr. Leonard Cain of Shiloh Temple. Cain has organized many of the funerals for teens murdered in Minneapolis. “Here we had a young man with a promising future doing something in the community.”
In Cain’s opinion what makes it so senseless is that many times you look at a person’s lifestyle and see that if a person lived violently then they may die violently. He said this was not the case with Anthony.
“I think we are dealing with a lot of mental illness in the inner city and no one is talking about it and it continues to be swept under the carpet,” he said.
Cain wondered if the church, community leaders and elders are doing enough to reach the young people. He feels the community needs to get back to the global village concept of community by and really taking care and building up those inside the village.
“We need to put aside the many differences to understand everybody is a part of the community and the senseless deaths are a part that affects the community,” Cain added.
Longtime Community Activist Al Flowers said he has known the Titus Family for over ten years and worked with Princess since her days with the Minneapolis Urban League.
Flowers blamed “politics” because the resources targeted for North Minneapolis are not reaching North Minneapolis. He explained that when the resources don’t get to the Northside, there is a direct impact on the kids: they have nowhere to go so they stay in the streets.
Flowers said politics are also at play because other community leaders and elders who usually reach out to the youth and the family during this time were notably absent from the funeral. “We have to put the politics to the side,” Flowers explained. “We need a summit because there are many community leaders who do not get along with city leaders or don’t get along with religious leaders. We all must put everything to the side and fight together for our kids.”
“Some people say the devil is at work here because we are all divided along different ethnic and religious lines,” Hulme said. “My dream is that we see elders in the community come together and solve this. I am a Caucasian living in North Minneapolis and I know I cannot take the lead but I can offer all my support and help through the Lutheran church which has resources and connections for what the elders come up with.”
Donations to the Family can be sent to Anthony Titus Memorial Fund, c/o Northeast Bank 77 NE Broadway, Minneapolis, MN 55413.
We are all grieving with Phat PhatMinneapolis 3rd Ward City Council member, Diane Hofstede wrote: On Saturday we buried another young person in our community, Anthony Titus, or Phat Phat as many of his friends and family called him. We are all grieving with his family. We cannot change that event or those that have followed, but we can join in making a commitment toward change. Together we have and will take our community back! Please read the words of Bishop Richard Howell Jr.
A call to 1,000 to stand for justice
Many words have been spoken about Phat Phat today; as we continue by God’s help to make sense from this 26th homicidal tragedy in our community. The words echoed today will help us, will give us a sense I trust that this memorial of this 16-year-old will assure us that this home going service was resplendent with honor in his memory, and respect for this family. Our prayers are with your family, and our love continues.
Thank you, family for giving me this humble opportunity to speak from the heart. We share your grief, not deeply as you feel, but we are all on the same page. We are deeply connected with you; the volume of mourners, who have filled this place today shows that our community manifests two incontrovertible facts: Number 1: We care. And Number 2: We are the majority. The killers of life are the minority, and have always been the minority; it is not the entire community who are killers, who seek to take lives of the young and others. Their minorities are explosive and mean-spirited, but always remember that they do not represent us today; they do not speak for us today; they have never spoken for us before today; and today is not the voice of the minority speaking; it is the voice of the majority.
That is, if we want to play hopscotch on the sidewalk peaceably, play double dutch on the street gleefully, walk anywhere on this North side fearlessly, and visit homes and houses cheerfully, then we are the majority.
If we want to sing and dance joyfully, play ball and hoops athletically, hold hands and be friends continuously, and learn and be taught academically, then we are the majority.
We are the majority, and so we ask, why should this minority steal our day, steal our happiness, steal our peace of mind, and steal our humanity. Why should they take our streets, when the streets were made for us? Why should they shoot our homes when the homes were built for us? Why should they control each block when the blocks were constructed for us? And why should they take our loved ones when our loved ones were created for us?
We are the voices of humanity, we are the voices of the streets, we are the voices of the neighborhoods, and we are the voices of the community; we are the majority, we are family, we are blood, we are strong. And by God’s help, to associate with the minority, to join forces for attention, to mask happiness for the sake of identity is not the real deal, for forces against forces is not real community, but a dysfunctional and fanatical war zone. Brother against brother is not community, territory against territory is not community, group against group is not community; it is a war zone, and anything that is a war zone is not the majority because the majority is community.This is no different from history. Many years ago there was a prophet who had seen the downfall of his community. He had seen the violence take over this neighborhood and the killings and murder grieved his spirit so, that he took his complaint to God.
In the Bible, here is what the prophet Habakkuk said, "How long o Lord must I call for help? But you did not listen! Violence is everywhere! I cry, you do not come to save. Must I forever see these evil deeds? Why must I watch all this misery? Wherever I look, I see destruction and violence. I am surrounded by people who love to argue and fight."
The man’s faith was under fire. He was beset over the raging provocation which gave his community a bad name. He took his complaint to God because He knew that with God, his community could redeem themselves from the violence. There would be resuscitation from death to life, from hate to love, from enemy to friend, and from violence to safety if God was involved. Habakkuk knew that if God was involved, things would not be as bad as they were.
And so, this prophet, this concerned citizen of the community made up his mind to wait to hear the voice of the Lord. And the Lord did speak and the Lord told Habakkuk to write the answer plainly. What is the solution for peace in the community? What is the solution for the majority who want to take back their community, win their neighbors, eliminate the weapons of destruction, and to see the hearts of the minority transformed as well as they?
Habakkuk heard God’s answer. The Bible says that he perched onto a watch tower, which was a private sanctuary for runaways who sought refuge and solitude, in order to rethink their positions, and make up in their minds what they really want to do with their lives: I mean for crying out loud, after we have seen tragedy after tragedy, bullet after bullet, killing after killing, funeral after funeral, something has got to change for the better, and with that change comes a reckoning with reality, to tell yourself and myself that we are the numbers that will stand together whether it be on Aldrich Avenue or Thomas Avenue; our community will be strengthened by the help of God; that is, if we come to God.
Inside Habakkuk’s watchtower was the voice of the Lord and He told this prophet, to write His answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. And here was the message: The righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.
Their living faith in God will give them the strength to live. Tell the runners to carry that message everywhere. Start on Aldrich, go to Bryant…..and run this message everywhere, that the righteous who want their community to heal, stand up to God and live! Let the majority stand up and show life to our dying streets, show life in our homes, show life at Broadway’s Pizza, and show life in our schools.
Stand up majority and live! Stand up majority and fight for love! Stand up majority and Run! We need runners for justice! So run and run well!
One of the runners can be a march. If we can get 1,000 young people, ages 12-35, to march on the streets, arm in arm and march for life, march for the memory of our loved ones, march for the those who have been cut down by violence, march for our mothers, march for our fathers, march for education, march for jobs, march for righteousness, and march for God, from Lyndale to Xerxes, then I believe we shall see our faith, which is under fire, but will take that same fire and fire up our faith, we shall live by God’s help.
“Another headline about another shooting in North Minneapolis...How did we get to this point again?”
By, S. Himie
A very surprising thing happened to me on Tuesday, July 6, 2010. I woke from a deep sleep of sorts when I decided to scan the headlines of the local newspaper online. The headline from the Star Tribune online read “16-year-old becomes city’s 26th homicide victim.” I read about Anthony Titus who was shot on Freemont Avenue. It woke me up like a loud car alarm in the middle of the night or as if someone had doused me with ice-cold water after falling asleep. I was shook’ --as the slang goes. Not another headline about another shooting in North Minneapolis, I thought. How did we get to this point again?
Not too many things get me out of my comfortable South Minneapolis neighborhood. I thought I could fence my family into our back yard and exist in bliss from the outside world. After reading the Titus murder story I realized the true meaning of “ignorance is bliss” and was compelled to come back “over North.”
For many years I have had mixed feelings about North Minneapolis. In my teens through my young adult years I spent a lot of summers and breaks visiting my cousins on Penn Avenue off Broadway. In 1995 I moved from Illinois to Minneapolis in the spring to live with my mother who worked as a hairstylist on Lake and Chicago. That summer the city got the dubious distinction of the nickname “Murderapolis.” In 1998 I got my first professional writing job on Bryant Avenue North. The murder rate was lower for a few years but crime rate kept escalating.
In 2001-2002 when my wife and I started a family and were looking to buy a home in Minneapolis we had a choice. We chose not to live in North. Now we have three sons. The youngest are preschoolers and the oldest attends a Minneapolis public school. Some families do not have the luxury of having the choices my wife and I had. I know this. I know some people choose to stay, live and raise a family in North.
I do not know the situation of Princess Titus and her family but I do know this: the Titus family did not deserve what happened on or after July 4, 2010. No family deserves that. Everyone I talked to said Princess Titus and her family did all the right things for their children. Anthony Senior was involved with his son’s life. Princess attended classes, just like my wife, that help parents prepare their children for college scholarship opportunities by attending and graduating from a Minneapolis public school.
Years ago, I learned in a literature class that desire is the opposite of death. We must have the desire to live. This is the baseline of existence. I also learned that the two biggest motivating factors to humans are fear and love. Princess Titus went beyond the basic desire to live and she chose love to motivate. She says her source of love comes from Christ. Whether you believe in what she believes or not, it seemed like from the outpouring from the youth that crowded Shiloh Temple last Saturday she shared that powerful love with Anthony, her family and the community.
I use to wonder what a true leader was and I think I am finally getting it in my old age. A true leader is one who desires and makes positive changes, not just for themselves but for those around them. A leader is a mother; a father; a brother; an aunt or an uncle; a grandparent; a coach; a pastor; a politician; a singer; a dancer, a teammate; a publisher; a writer; a policeman; a teacher. We have all those in our community to influence the youth.
There could have been 2,000 plus leaders in the Shiloh temple two Saturdays ago because we all wanted to change something in our time of crisis. Mayor Rybak saw it. Don Samuels saw it. Then while going over my notes I was reminded of what Pastor Hulme and I talked about. He said when he first began teaching, one of his mentors told him we teach them because they are children.
We are the adults here. We are the grown ups and we need to stop competing against one another. We need to collaborate our efforts and try to make some headway in this crisis. Al Flowers said North side leaders should put aside their difference and have a summit. He is correct. We all need to come together and do more collaborating rather than competing. With collaboration we throw out all the ideas that do not work and we work hard at the ones that do.
Maybe we can look to Princess Titus as a leader some day just as Minnesota and the world looks to Patty Wettterling. Wetterling became a leading advocate for children after the abduction of her son Jacob. Every year we remember October 22, 1989, the date of her son’s abduction.
Dr. Leonard Cain of Shiloh Temple said we must get back to the concept of the village and build up those inside the village. Let us get back to being a village and look after our own. Before we do any marching let us ask permission to gather around and build up the Titus family. Let us first feed them literally and figuratively with the love that a village has to offer. Let us gather around them and celebrate them for doing the right things and learn how they and other families managed to do the right things. Then we can go around to the youth and apply those same skills and build them up to be future leaders who come back to North Minneapolis to build up the next generation.
The young are amazing because they can absorb quickly all we give them --negative or positive. The youth are watching us all the time. My older son accuses me of favoring his younger brothers and I catch him watching how I deal with them. I learned a lot from dealing with him when he was their age. My techniques are still trial and error. I tried certain ways with him and they did not work and now I know not to try certain things with his younger brothers. I try to replace yelling and “no” with a lot more silly humor mixed with choices and consequences. I have to be a parent but I have learned to treat them and motivate them like I would like to be treated and motivated.
Together as a village we can find ways to motivate our children when they don’t do their homework; when they don’t come home at night; when they sneak out and hang out on the corner; when they are not going to school and not doing right.
All who spoke at the Anthony Titus funeral were on point with what they said about stepping up involvement with the youth. Princess Titus and 5th ward City Councilman Don Samuels suggested sitting down and really get to know our youth without judging them and meeting their needs before we can start influencing them. There may be a challenge called a “generation gap” but over time I hope it gets easier.
Mayor R.T. Rybak was correct about looking upon Anthony Titus as if he were our own son. All young men and women in Minneapolis should be seen as our children. Many hope that he can help solve the problems. But let us not be deluded because not all children in Minneapolis are dying violent deaths at high rates. The numbers show that the children dying are young and African American (Black). We are at or near a crisis point that comes close to how it was in 1995. This summer is not over yet. The mayor can only do so much.
Pastor Dale Hulme of St. Olaf Lutheran seems to understand the dilemma of helping with leadership in North Minneapolis. Sure, many may resent him if he tries to take the lead. Other ethnic groups have problems in their neighborhoods but they often rely on their own to lead in solving those problems. Hulme has offered resources through his church and he is willing to offer more and fit in wherever necessary. Let’s motivate one another and grab every resource out there for our children.
Bishop Richard Howell Jr. made a great point about how the minority- a few in North Minneapolis-- are actually perpetrating the violence of the community and the majority of North want all the same things for their children as other parents in other communities. Parents in North desire and should demand good education and safe surroundings for their children. This should be the “given” or a baseline of any community or village.
