Planting Seeds of Urban Peace? : National gang summit might be a step toward lessening of the violence

Street gangs plague American cities. Their rivalries and criminal behavior threaten the vitality of urban America. But the national gang summit held recently in Kansas City could reduce the violence if participants take what they learned back to their homeboys.

The National Urban Peace and Justice Summit attracted about 200 former and current gang members from 26 cities. The unusual conclave was organized by the United Church of Christ, a denomination long active in the civil rights movement. Can the strategies of the nonviolent civil rights movement reduce the epidemic of violence in the inner cities?

A major strategy calls for duplicating the truce formed more than a year ago by four predominantly black gangs in Watts. The theory holds that if Los Angeles-based gangs can export their mayhem to other cities, they can also transfer their so-far-successful truce. Putting down weapons, however, may not prove as contagious as picking them up. But the Watts truce is a start.

In Chicago, highly regimented gang factions agreed last October to a truce in the Cabrini-Green public housing complex after a sniper killed a 7-year-old boy who was walking to school. Since that murder, police have reported no additional homicides in the housing project.

Chicago authorities are quick to add that the gang truce coincided with beefed-up police patrols. At least something is working.

A truce in Minneapolis achieved mixed results: After the truce was declared, several participants were charged in the murder of a police officer. Some social agencies continue to offer education and jobs in a partnership with former and current gang members.

Jobs are high on every urban wish list. The leaders of the Kansas City summit have asked for 500,000 jobs for disadvantaged youths. That request should encourage President Clinton and Congress-- including law-and-order Republicans--to deliver some of those jobs. Such opportunities can increase the possibility of peace.

Gang leaders have also asked for increased federal attention to police brutality cases. That request, too, is reasonable, given the limited prosecution. In Washington, U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno already has assigned higher priority to those cases.

The Kansas City summit won’t undo overnight the harm or allegiances wrought by decades of gang-banging. But it could focus positive attention on a generation of young men that had been written off--perhaps too soon.