The Gumbo Coalition by Marc Morial

Author:Marc Morial
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harpercollins Leadership
Published: 2020-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

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A LEADER IS NOT PARALYZED BY THE UNEXPECTED

The dead body with a bullet through the heart, found at the corner of Chartres Street and Elysian Fields Avenue, on the morning of October 11, 1998, was that of Raymond Myles. At the time of his death, Myles was considered a local gospel legend. To me, however, his death wasn’t the loss of a recording artist but the loss of a friend. Myles’s death ignited a fire in me that in turn set off a firestorm I never saw coming. Eradicating gun violence had been an obsession of mine since childhood.

Myles’s death compelled me to recall the death of my childhood friend, Donald Spraul. He was my best friend in first and second grade even though the two of us lived on opposite sides of the ditch that separated Pontchartrain Park (the black neighborhood) and Gentilly Woods (the white neighborhood). I must mention that Donald was white. For the pair of us on different sides of the ditch to become friends was quite rare in those days. We spent countless days hanging out at each other’s homes, building our friendship. So when I received the news as a ten year-old that my friend Donald was shot and killed, I felt that loss deeply. Though Don wasn’t killed through violence—he was killed in a freak hunting accident—in my mind, Don’s death registered as yet another example of why I view gun violence with disdain.

At the time of Myles’s death, I was part of a US Conference of Mayors’ Task Force that was in negotiations with the NRA and the Gun Manufacturers Association of America (GMAA).

This ad hoc task force’s negotiations aimed to find a win-win scenario. By that, I mean a scenario that would allow American cities to enact policies that would drastically reduce the number of guns that find their way to our streets while honoring Second Amendment protections and the gun companies’ rights to make a profit. Although some of my fellow mayors took the NRA and GMAA representatives at their word, I never thought they were negotiating in good faith. Unfortunately, I was correct.

The task force was still in the midst of those “road-to-nowhere” negotiations when my friend Raymond Myles was stricken down by a gun’s bullet. Just a few weeks before, Myles performed at the inauguration festivities marking my second term. Now he was another gun violence statistic. The contingent of mayors stressed staying the course, but frankly, I had had enough. I broke ranks, stepped out on my own, and sued the NRA and GMAA, holding them responsible for the rash of gun violence murders suffocating the country.

My fellow mayors were pissed to put it lightly. I remember Philadelphia’s mayor, Ed Rendell, calling to discourage me from not staying in lockstep with the other mayors. I certainly understood his position, but as I explained to him, my local politics, my city, and my personal connection with Myles took precedence.

Twenty days after Myles’s

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