In his acceptance speech upon receiving the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said violence is immoral because “it destroys community.” Violence in our neighborhoods is, in no small part, the compounded interest of centuries of racial inequity.

That is a payment we must stop making. My faith in our ability as a community to stand against this is built on our collective response to COVID-19. Many people could have locked themselves away — and some did. But many more started checking in on neighbors, volunteering at food banks, delivering meals and sewing face masks. After all, when we talk of “herd immunity,” we are at least acknowledging the reality of our interdependence. My challenge and my hope is that we bring that perspective to the fight against community violence. Not one of us is or ever will be immune from a bullet. But if we begin to operate more like a “herd,” we will strengthen our city’s immune system against the epidemic of violence.