A messenger of peace
A wall at the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in Fields Corner aptly captures the heart of its mission.
It is covered with buttons commemorating the dead, well over 100 in all, young victims of violence. Luis Gerena is represented there, and so are Charles Johnson and Nhuan Nguyen. Almost all of those remembered were killed in Boston over the last 15 years.
The institute's mission is twofold: to offer relief to survivors and to encourage nonviolence.
The institute was not supposed to be open yesterday. A $75,000 grant was slashed from the state budget this fall, and the place was due to run out of cash by the end of last week.
But anyone who thought it would go under probably doesn't know Clementina Chery its founder and guiding spirit. The institute is her memorial to her son, Louis Brown, who was slain in 1993. His killing began a mission, to save others some of the pain she has known.
"For me this is personal," she said. "It's 15 years later, and the kids who are dying and killing now weren't even born when Louis was killed."
Faced with the prospect of losing the institute, the public has responded. Donors have contributed $85,000, with a fund-raiser scheduled tonight at the Blarney Stone, a Dorchester pub across the street from the institute.
The donors have been large and small, prominent and anonymous. Though the task of raising money is far from done - it is never done in a small nonprofit - the immediate crisis has been weathered.
"This means our message of peace is not falling by the wayside," Chery said. "If people believe we are worthy, they will speak."
Given the institute's work, it isn't surprising that it serves as a magnet for people who have known tragedy.
"The majority of people who work here are survivors," said Milton Jones, the program director. "We've lost children." His teenage son was killed in Leominster in 1993.
Much of the institute's work is done in the immediate aftermath of homicides. Victims' families are sent Chery's way by the district attorney's office, hospitals, funeral homes, and schools.
Chery's life has been neatly divided into two parts - before Louis, and after Louis. She had no interest in the topic that now consumes her before her son was caught in gang crossfire. To the extent that she thought about violence at all, her views were conventional.
"If my son was alive, I would be selling Mary Kay [cosmetics], sitting at home, and saying these people deserve what they get," she said yesterday. "That's who I was. It took my son's death to take off the blinders."
When those blinders were removed, she decided that this city spends far too much energy dealing with the aftermath of violence, and not nearly enough on trying to save lives. She went to work teaching conflict resolution in what has become a ministry of healing.
Part of that work is conducted by maintaining a busy speaking schedule. Chery will talk about violence prevention to anyone who will slow down long enough to listen. As she says, "It's not an easy message to sell."
But selling it has brought her no small measure of peace. And something else: joy. She said she was speaking at Temple Beth Avodah in Newton last year when a familiar feeling washed over her in an unfamiliar setting. "I couldn't understand what they were singing, and to us, the books were backward. But I just felt this joy - when you're talking about peace, you can feel it. For me, joy is when you surrender and you believe there is a greater presence guiding you."
Her thoughts are now turning to the 15th anniversary of her son's death, which will be commemorated with a fund-raiser at First Parish Church in Dorchester Dec. 20. Another chance to spread her message of peace.
"We're going to talk about the legacy, and where we're going," Chery said. "And we're going to dance."
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 