The Rev. John Borders III addressed a meeting of Boston clergy members at the Morning Star Baptist Church in Mattapan on May 18, 1992, shortly after gang violence broke out at the church during a funeral for Robert Odom (left), who had been gunned down in a drive-by shooting. The attack spurred the city to implement a new neighborhood strategy to combat youth violence.
(Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff/File)
Morning Star Baptist violence still resonates
’92 gang attack at church was turning point for city
The Rev. John Borders III addressed a meeting of Boston clergy members at the Morning Star Baptist Church in Mattapan on May 18, 1992, shortly after gang violence broke out at the church during a funeral for Robert Odom (left), who had been gunned down in a drive-by shooting. The attack spurred the city to implement a new neighborhood strategy to combat youth violence.
(Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff/File)
The brazen 1992 crime at the Mattapan church, in which a teenager was stabbed nine times and a bullet fired into the crowded church, was a pivotal moment in the city’s history, setting in motion changes that are still felt today. It catalyzed a clergy that by its own admission had failed to grasp the dimensions of youth violence, sending preachers into the neighborhood to minister troubled adolescents. It gave youth workers and neighborhood activists renewed urgency in their fight to keep teenagers away from drugs and violence.
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