January 12, 2022
Martin Luther King Jr.
2022 Special Edition
Page 7
Activist Remembers King’s Lessons
Her aim is to
save kids from
gun violence
By Beverly Corbell
The Portland Observer
Laurie Palmer, a Black com-
munity activist who started a lo-
cal organization to address the
root causes of gang violence, re-
members how much the message
of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. affected her life and how she
tries to carry his work for racial
progress forward.
A motivational speaker and
founder of the Go Get Your Child
Community Violence Prevention
Coalition, Palmer’s vision is “to
have a community that collabo-
rates together to create safer op-
tions to violence.”
Gang violence is rampant in
Portland, she said, and Palmer’s
own son Jasmine was shot four
times in 1995. He survived, but
died of a heart attack five years
later. Fighting against gang vio-
lence is something she has never
stepped down from, even actively
confronting young gang members,
including her son.
“I used to go get my child
through all his gangbanging and
all this foolishness… I was in
the street with his little homies
at night when they were running
around, chasing them down, put-
ting blessing oil on all their heads
and telling them the blood of Jesus
is against you,” she said. “They
knew me and some of them are
cutting my grandson’s hair now. I
feel like I saved some lives.”
But she hasn’t slowed down
and is constantly coming up with
new strategies to help victims of
violence and enable mothers to
have the ability to get their child
out of gangs.
With the help of grants and oth-
er activists, Palmer’s latest efforts
include reaching out to at least sev-
en women who have lost a child
to gang violence, to help them be-
come stable, and have them in turn
help other mothers. To learn more,
go to gogetyourchild.org.
“If we start healing the wom-
en, we can heal this community,”
she said.
Palmer had a tough childhood,
and remembers being inspired
by King.
“Every house that I went in,
from my mom’s to my grand-
mother’s to my great-grand- Black community activist Laurie Palmer, a motivational speaker and founder of the Go Get Your Child
Community Violence Prevention Coalition, attends an event commemorating the lives lost to gun
Continued on Page 22
violence.
The world through his eyes.
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