The most vulnerable residents, the ones who sell and use drugs and the children who appear parentless, can seem hopelessly out of reach. One day last week, a woman baby-sitting two young children interrupted a conversation with a reporter on Madison to bark into her cell phone: "Just bring me two bags of something to get me high!"
Christopher and his family - two grown daughters and their children live a few houses away - remember knocking on doors in the 2600 block of Ashland earlier this summer, trying to promote youth programs. No one answered at the home where the cookout shooting occurred.
Demetra Oluwasefumi, Christopher's 35-year-old daughter, shook her head. "If they don't make themselves known to us ... you keep yourself in a little circle. Why not come join the living?"
Then again, neighbors say the cookout's 25-year-old host, Lakeisha Hill, who arranged the event in memory of her slain brother, puts in long hours as a nurse at Central Booking. So maybe she was just at work that day.
Christopher and Smith were tucked away in their rowhouses at the time of the shooting Sunday night. Though it was just around the corner, neither rushed to the scene. They also skipped the vigils and passed on adding a candle or balloon to the memorial that sprang up on the corner.
Those are fleeting gestures, they say, and they want to save their time and energy for efforts that may have an enduring impact on their community, like youth programs and job training.
"The NAACP, the police, they come out here for one night, two nights, and they're gone," Christopher said. "We live here. We want to make an everlasting change.
"What do I think about the shooting?" he said. "I think I better keep knocking on doors."
To Mitchell Henderson, the only hope for lasting change is to connect with youth. For 30 years, he has helped run the Madison-East End Multipurpose Center, and last week wrapped up a six-week program for 21 teenagers in the city's YouthWorks summer initiative.
Optimism about the neighborhood was scarce in the sweltering classroom at the center, a rowhouse on Port Street. Most of the teens said Sunday's shooting surprised them only because of the horrific details - the 12 victims, the cookout setting, the fact that a pregnant woman and toddler were among the wounded.
By a show of hands, 14 of the teens said they had a relative who'd been shot. These were uncles, cousins, brothers, a father. Half said a relative had been killed. Henderson, a 73-year-old retired Army sergeant, raised his hand too.
