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A letter from Rev. Dr Charles R. Harrison addresses the urgent black-on-black violence issue.

Since 2012, there has been significant outrage and increased awareness regarding the killings of Black men and women by police and racist individuals. Names like Michael Brown, Trayvon… pic.twitter.com/ufERVqIugA

— Rev Dr Charles Harrison (@charlesharriso5) July 22, 2025

A letter from Rev. Dr Charles R. Harrison addresses the urgent black-on-black violence issue.

Since 2012, there has been significant outrage and increased awareness regarding the killings of Black men and women by police and racist individuals. Names like Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tyre Nichols have become synonymous with this issue. These tragic events led to the national movement known as Black Lives Matter.

However, some critics, including myself, feel that this movement overlooks an important issue: Black-on-Black violence, which is the leading cause of death for Black males in America aged 1 to 44 years. While Black Americans represent a smaller portion of the U.S. population (13.6%), they accounted for more than half (54.1%) of all homicide victims in 2022.

Recently, two mass shootings involving young Black males in Philadelphia and Indianapolis received national attention. The issue of Black-on-Black violence has become a taboo topic; it does not elicit the same outrage as when a white police officer kills a Black man. When Black men kill each other, there is often little response from the Black community. Similarly, when Black juveniles and children are killed, these incidents tend to be just one- or two-day news stories that quickly fade away.

The reality is that when Blacks kill Blacks, we often choose to ignore it because confronting this issue forces us to look in the mirror. For the last sixty years, thousands of Black men have been gunned down in the streets of America due to Black-on-Black violence. It is a tragedy that we are increasingly seeing Black women become victims of senseless violence as well.

A family secret is not a secret when the world can see the impact of Black-on-Black violence on the nightly news. Some argue that all races are responsible for violence against one another. Still, when examining rates of racial violence per capita, no race approaches the level of violence occurring within the Black community. As of 2023, the homicide victimization rate for Black individuals in the United States was 21.3 per 100,000 people. This rate is significantly higher than the overall homicide victimization rate (9.3 per 100,000) and the rate for White individuals (3.2 per 100,000).

We can no longer ignore this national crisis. We are losing Black males and females by the thousands each year due to violent crimes. I believe the issue of Black-on-Black violence is complex and multilayered, but we will never address it if we are not willing to have conversations about the factors driving it and how we can find solutions. In the Black community, when there is trouble in the house, we say it’s time for a "come to Jesus" meeting. This meeting should have occurred sixty years ago. We can no longer wait; the Black community must engage in this difficult conversation for the sake of our future.

We must do everything possible to reverse this plague on our community that is disproportionately claiming the lives of young Black males at an alarming rate. We cannot move forward as a people until this epidemic has ended. There is too much hopelessness and death in our community. This madness must stop, and we must give future generations hope for a much brighter day.