Brokering Peace

"We were helping them to make the social adjustment" from the streets to finding a different way to deal with problems, Abraham said.

Weeks later, leaders of the two groups stood near the Big Chair in Anacostia and announced a truce. To ensure that it's more than mere words, Peaceoholics is trying to get the leaders into training programs or find them jobs.

"This is all so fragile," Abraham said. "One little thing, and everything could start up again."

* * *

The entrance to 606 Raleigh Pl., tucked between Malcolm X and Alabama avenues SE, is nondescript. A cement stairway leads to a sparsely decorated waiting room, two conference rooms and a tiny office that Moten and Abraham share.

When the bosses are there, everyone wants a piece. Their cellphones -- two each -- ring constantly. There are papers to sign, grants to apply for, decisions to make. Someone is always asking for money or food.

They act as surrogate parents, securing dresses for young women attending the mayor's inaugural ball, getting prescriptions filled and making sure that children who come to their office have a ride home and a place to sleep.

Some are fleeing abuse at home or have parents who are dead or in jail and no relatives willing to take them in. At Young America Works, where many of their clients attend school, the principal installed a small pantry, a washer and dryer and a shower to allow students to clean up discreetly.

Moten is in-your-face aggressive, demanding change now, dressing down public officials and youths with the same verve. Abraham is contemplative, using psychology and reason in hushed tones to get his point across.

But their goal is the same: to build an army of street soldiers.

Sharece Crawford, 19, is one of their prized recruits.

She drove her first stolen car before she was 12. She got into many fights. Three years ago, she met Moten and Abraham through a lunch program they sponsored at Ballou Senior High School. While eating and listening to informal discussions on life, Crawford developed a kinship with the men. They, too, had seen shootings, walked past dead bodies.

"They had been where we were," she said.

Her confidence grew as she learned how young people had helped change American history. Peaceoholics gave her a stipend and took her to D.C. Council hearings so she could tell her story. She improved her grades, graduated and was accepted at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. Moten and Abraham drove her to school and bought her a refrigerator and a television.

"They help you to see your past and help you become something," she said.

One recent day, Crawford was online looking for a used car -- this time, to buy. A communications major, she has designs on advocating for youths when she graduates, as her mentors did with her.

That suits Moten just fine. The work they do with Crawford -- much of which can't easily be written into a government contract -- is necessary, Moten said, to ensure that people will replace him when he moves on to other work.

"Our goal is to have the youth running this thing," Moten said. "We can't be 60 years old out here squashing beefs."