Chapter 22: Afterword: Prayer For The First Day Of Chicago Public School

May the twenty-seven students who lost their lives last academic year eat their grandmother’s cooking in the afterlife, go to prom in the next world; their lives and deaths not be forgotten in vain.

May the bullets intended for the chests of children this year veer into Lake Michigan or fall from the air like dice. May the fingers on those triggers, rash or tickle before fire. May we humanize the gun holder, many of them kids who school didn’t speak to, who were left behind, kicked out, dropped out, pushed out by our failure to educate. May the gangs that take them in, return to their political street organizing roots and give to the community more than they taketh away.