Breaking the Cycle

Violence and Trauma

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  Child's Memorial

  Mother: Crystal R
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  stop

  Mother: Shearine M
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  Zharae

  Mother: Whitney H

  "This is me breaking the cycle with my daughter. I don’t want my daughter to go through nothing I went through."

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  Peace At Work

  Mother: Whitney H

  "You have to make peace. I feel you have to make peace because if you don’t then you’ll be caught up out here with everything else that’s going on around you. You have to learn how to take yourself outta that and keep your own peace ‘cause if not you’re not gonna have any peace. In reality we don’t [have peace]. The only peace we may have is when we are asleep or when we are in our own homes. But then you still have bullets flying through the windows."

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  Treadmill

  Mother: Crystal S

  I get stressed, I get overworked, bills are piling up, I feel like I’m ready to explode… I just go on my treadmill, reduce the stress. By the time I’m finished I feel a whole lot better. Try to find a constructive way to deal with everyday life without drinking, without smoking, without fighting, without cussing, beating on the kids because you're just at your wit’s end. Find something constructive and positive for yourself to do.

   

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  Smile

  Mother: Melissa H

  It hinders me a lot to know that as a little girl I was raped and beaten. I never wanted a daughter, and I know I can’t make that judgment, but God gave me a daughter. And he probably gave her to me to make me stronger but it doesn’t. It makes me weaker because I’m so overprotective of her. It’s like I don’t let her do this, I don’t let her do that. And she gets mad like she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand. 

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  Needed pampering

  Mother: Angela S

  Her father is my first cousin…he raped his girlfriend’s oldest daughter. He’s in jail now, the only family she know is me. She'd never gotten her feet and nails done so I got her feet and nails done.

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  Gun control billboard

  Mother: Virginia G
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  We need peace

  Mother: Tangela F

  We need peace. That’s why I love doing the peace sign. All my friends are like “that is so old, nobody does that anymore.” But I'm like, "we need peace!"

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  Memorial

  Mother: Angela M

  My neighbor’s son:
  The drugs are the root of all of it.  My neighbor’s son was killed there, and this neighbor still gets high, too.  Her son got killed for drugs right down the street from my house, and they’re still selling crack.  It’s sick.  When she gets all zapped out of her mind, she goes down there and lights a candle, around one, two o’clock in the morning.