Interrupting Violence

Cobe Williams is the Director of National Programs for Cure Violence Global (CVG), where he trained over five thousand workers in violence prevention. He appeared in the film The Interrupters and People, Vice, Ebony, and The New Yorker. He received a standing ovation at his TEDx event. He serves as a community ambassador for basketball star Joakim Noah's Foundation. He is a first-time author, with a BA from Northeastern Illinois University and is pursuing a masters in social work. He currently lives in Chicago.Josh Gryniewicz is an author, storyteller, comic book writer, and health communicator. He was a contributing author to Beyond Suppression: Global Perspectives on Youth Violence and Crime & Society and a regular columnist with PopMatters. In 2018, he founded Odd Duck, a storytelling for social change communication consultancy, which has advised over fifty violence prevention programs throughout the country. He is the former communication director for Cure Violence. He currently lives in Chicago. Learn more at their website: https://www.interruptingviolence.com/

A stirring account from the front lines of urban violence prevention. Writing with Gryniewicz, Williams alternates between frank discussions of the challenges faced by anti-violence ‘interrupters’ performing conflict mediation in Chicago’s resource-poor Black neighborhoods and a memoir about his own improbable transformation from a second-generation member of the Black Disciples. Alongside other aspects of restorative justice, the movement gained visibility following the acclaimed 2011 documentary The Interrupters, in which Williams appeared. In the foreword, director Alex Kotlowitz writes, ‘It’s formally known as community violence intervention, but that doesn’t begin to capture the scope of what Cobe and others do as they walk their communities with an open heart and a quiet fury stemming from their belief that things need not be this way.’ Williams later adds, ‘Community violence intervention is a growing public safety movement that stops shootings and killings on the front end. It uses formerly incarcerated gang members as ‘credible messengers’ to interrupt violence.’ The narrative presents a vivid family history, including intense vignettes like his own father’s murder following success as a drug dealer, alongside an ongoing account of the complex networking involved in the conflict resolution efforts of organizations like CeaseFire (since renamed Cure Violence), which provide “a model for this approach borrowed from the discipline of public health rather than criminology.” Indeed, during the pandemic, writes the author, ‘we moved from solely focusing on violence prevention to serving as community health workers.’ Following the police murder of George Floyd and subsequent uprisings, ‘the community violence intervention model, which I had been promoting for over a decade, reached new prominence.’ …Williams is deeply perceptive about brutal urban realities, and he dismantles assumptions rooted in implicit bias with academic rigor and effective storytelling. A heartfelt, authentic guide for combatting community violence.

• Foreword by Alex Kotlowitz Foreword by Joakim Noah Introduction PART I: BORN INTO IT1 One Chicago Summer 2 Cadillac Goalposts3 Navigating Borderlands 4 Ain’t Too Dumb 5 The Most Dangerous Gas Station in America 6 A Chicago Winter 7 Strategies for Resolving Conflict 8 After My Father’s Murder 9 On the Trail of Big Folks 10 The Professional Gangster PART II ALL OUT WAR11 The Stickup Man 12 At My Front Door 13 How This Could’ve Played Out 14 Escalations 15 How This Could’ve Played Out, Part II 16 A Shoot-Out and a Frame-Up PART III: PATH TO PEACEKEEPING17 History Repeating Itself 18 Wild Wild 19 Chicago’s Hidden History 20 Revenge Is Hardwired 21 The Start of Something 22 Healing Wounds 23 A New Life PART IV LOOKING UPSTREAM24 Game Changer 25 The National Program 26 One City, One Game 27 The New York City Crisis Management System 28 Real Chicago 29 Group Mediations 30 Righting the Upside-Down World Epilogue: Anywhere, USA: The Future Notes Bibliography About the Authors