By Robert E. Pierre and Clarence Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 16, 2006
The teenagers started lining up early on the lilac stairs, arriving by Metro, bus and car and on foot. Word had spread: The Market Lounge in Northeast was playing go-go.
At the door, they waved their ID cards, and soon they were in the middle of a throbbing dance floor, 100 teenagers dancing elbow to elbow, holding up T-shirts honoring their dead homies and flashing neighborhood signs with their fingers: Lench Mob (Woodland Terrace), Choppa City (Anacostia), Simple City (Benning Terrace).
That's about the time at many go-gos that fights break out and someone winds up shot or dead. But here, the two police officers assigned to the event didn't budge, pretty certain there'd be no trouble.
These teens and preteens trained -- took lessons -- to come to this club.
They sat through two documentaries. They endured tough-love lectures.
They made a pledge: We will not come to go-gos to settle scores. We will not fight. We will abide by the rules and be respectful.
Finally, they were issued special ID cards that would get them into a series of "peace-gos." Saturday's was the first.
The city has been up in arms lately about youth violence, issuing curfews, ordering police to work overtime. This is an effort to end youth violence, too -- a novel experiment by Market Lounge and a community coalition.
Market Lounge, which normally caters to an R&B and hand-dancing crowd, sits above a small fruit stand in a commercial center where trucks carrying meats, dry goods and clothes rumble past.
The owner, Daryle M. Vaughn, 46, took a circuitous route to nightclub ownership: He was a NASA engineer.
He developed hardware and software used on the Hubble Space Telescope and on the battlefield during the Persian Gulf War.
But in the late '80s, his father took sick, and Vaughn stepped in to run the family business, a pool hall above a Florida Avenue fruit market. In 1999, Vaughn turned the pool hall into the Market Lounge, and two years later, at the urging of friends, began featuring live music, including go-go.
Go-go was born in the District in the mid-1970s. It became a multi-decade rage, but eventually the scene developed a nasty reputation as a magnet for violence, forcing clubs to shut their doors or move out of the District to the suburbs.
In August, Vaughn decided to try a long afternoon of go-go.
Sure enough, warring neighborhood teenagers got into a brawl inside the club. Vaughn bounced them into the street. Someone fired shots, wounding a 14-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy. It was midafternoon.
"For a male to shoot a female in broad daylight gave me the constant thought: What is really going on in today's youth's mind?" Vaughn recalled. "What are they feeling that there is so much anguish that you would shoot a little girl? You didn't talk to her, you didn't beat her up, you chose your method of vengeance with firearms."
About a month ago, Ronald Moten, co-founder of Peaceoholics, a District group that tries to stop gang violence, came to Vaughn with a proposal: Open your club for "peace-gos." Only teenagers who went through Peaceoholic training and signed a nonviolence agreement would be admitted. Other community groups would chip in on security, giveaways such as T-shirts and discounts for card-holders at local stores.
Vaughn agreed and joined a coalition with District and Prince George's County authorities, community groups, urban retailers such as Alldaz and the Critical Condition Band, a popular go-go group that recently recorded a stop-the-violence song.
"Membership has its privileges," Vaughn said. "We're hoping these kids will be able to stick their chest out and be proud."
A Lesson in HistoryDozens of teenagers stared as the screen showed youths roughly their age being beaten with batons, doused with high-pressure water hoses and bitten by dogs.
Some cringed; others yelled in disbelief. "They're beating them," one said.
The film they were watching at the Peaceoholics headquarters in Congress Heights was about the 1963 Children's March, in which the children of Birmingham went to jail and stood up to police to protest forced segregation when their parents were too afraid.
As the students in the documentary poked out their tongues and their behinds at police, some of the children watching clapped. Afterward, Moten grilled them: When was the Children's March? What was the goal? Who were the key players?
This film was about empowerment. The second one was about the consequences of living the thug life: It showed dozens of boys killed in recent years on District streets -- some of whom the kids recognized.
This was peace-go training, and it had the buzz of a classroom. Kids excitedly raised their hands, shouted out answers and waited for more questions. The right answers earned prizes: Peaceoholics T-shirts.
Constant chattering while Moten talked got some chastised. "I'm not going to disrespect you, and you're not going to disrespect me," he said, his voice rising. "This is for people who are trying to do the right thing. If you don't want to be here, you can leave right now."
Nobody moved. The main discussion resumed, about how to talk things out, how to go their own way and not with the crowd and how to dream about a better future.
Moten lectured them for posing as gangsters, glamorizing thuggish behavior and violence and not understanding where real power lies.
"George Bush is gangster, Bill Clinton is gangster," he said. "Real gangsters wear suits and settle their beefs at the table. What y'all doing in the streets is acting like fools."
Before receiving their cards, the students were warned: At the peace-gos, a special room would be set aside to resolve conflicts. Those who chose to fight instead were told they would lose their cards and possibly their freedom.
"I'll turn you over to the police myself," said Moten, an ex-offender who served time on drug charges a decade ago. "And I will come to see you in jail and say, 'I told you so.' "
'Life's Too Short for Games'The go-go bands are getting a similar lecture: If you want to be a part, no cursing, no violent lyrics and go easy on the neighborhood shout-outs.
From the stage, Eric "E-Time" Coates, 21, sees trouble brewing all too often. The lead singer of CCB said some teenagers seem high or drunk, and others storm in with their crews, eyeballing everyone as an enemy. Crimes committed by his peers shock him.
"You can barely walk out your door with a clean pair of tennis shoes, without someone coming up on you funny or saying, 'I'm going to rob him,' " Coates said. "It's crazy."
Many youths said they are tired of the nonsense.
"Life's too short for games, and we just joking around," said Anita Nettles, 18, as she listened to the training before heading off to party. "We need to do something. This gives youth more opportunity to stay away from trouble."
At the Market Lounge, 13-year-old Shandeliha Walker of Benning Terrace spent her first afternoon at a go-go and pronounced it a success, dancing in the crowd as though she was a veteran. "I had fun," she said. "It was peaceful."
Terrance White, 18, and B.Y. Milton, 16, were among those on the outside, pleading to get in. The bouncers said no.
"How do you get a card?" asked one of White's friends.
"You have to go through the training," the bouncer said.
Disappointed, they went back home to Southeast, but not before White complained to his friends, "They don't take money or Visa or debit card or nothing."
Organizers said they're making no exceptions because the stakes are too high. They want to show city leaders and potential sponsors that there's a better way to keep youths engaged than simply telling them to stay inside after 10 p.m.
At the end, Moten took to the stage with a final word of pride and warning.
"We have 12 different neighborhoods up in here, and you all are getting along. And I know some of y'all don't get along in the street," he said before pledging: "If you fight, you will be banned forever, forever, ever. Ever!"
A handful of kids raised two fingers in a peace sign as they filed out.
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