A Journey Through Generational Trauma
Told by Radarra McLendon
Written by Benjamin Griffis, Niko Miranda, and
Laurie Grobman
Fathers and sons are shot down in cold blood. Mothers and daughters are beaten by the ones who claim to love them. Violence destroys lives and plagues communities. It can leave life-long scars that may heal but never truly go away. Radarra McLendon lived this life. She lost friends and family to gun violence and experienced domestic violence at the hands of her own family. Yet, she persevered and overcame these struggles. Her greatest challenges in life became the driving force to create something better for her community. She rejected the status quo, rose above the violence, and came out on the other side with the foundations of hope for a better future.
Violence was commonplace for Radarra throughout her childhood: “Abuse and violence has always been a part of life. And it was very normalized, not just in my household, but in the community.” It came in many forms, including gun violence, domestic abuse, and sexual assault. When she was just two years old, she lost her grandfather to suicide. Her mother had two children by the time she turned 18 and raised them on her own. Her brother, who struggled with mental health issues due to the lack of available services, became involved with crime at a young age, eventually spending most of his childhood locked away in prison. One of his robberies resulted in a person being shot and killed. Radarra was repeatedly sexually assaulted by two individuals. Discipline in her family often involved beatings using instruments such as coat hangers or extension cords.
Throughout her childhood, Radarra lost more people to gun violence than she could count. Her first experience occurred when she was in middle school. Her cousin and his friends acquired a firearm and discharged it, killing her cousin. One of the neighborhood kids was shot and killed. Radarra remembers “just thinking and thinking and thinking about them and why that happened” when she learned of Elijah Crawley and Gregory Clark’s murders; it left a deep impact on Radarra’s life, going as far as disrupting her sleep with vivid dreams. Another neighborhood friend had been killed the night of Radarra’s birthday.
Gun violence had such a presence in the community that Radarra remembers “hearing about some of the losses of people that I was particularly close to and not even being able to cry or being able to really, fully process it because it was an occurring thing that always just happened in our community.” Radarra noticed that many in her community had simply become desensitized to it, seeing it as just a part of life.
This upbringing affected Radarra’s parenting style. Like her mother before her, she too became a single teen mom at the age of 18, giving birth to her son. However, she realized that much of the violence she had experienced growing up was committed by the people in direct care of her. They were the ones who were supposed to protect and love her. Because of these experiences, Radarra chose to educate herself on proper parenting techniques, reading books and utilizing the skills she gained as a nanny. Although she made these attempts, when reflecting on her time raising her son, she noticed that she spent a lot of time yelling at and smacking him, using her own upbringing as justification. This led to Radarra experiencing an epiphany: “So, this is why I respond the way I do. I remember feeling it then, and still to this day, sometimes I would feel it. But learning about what it does to your nervous system, I remember being a child and getting yelled at and I would have this tingling sensation that would go all the way down my spine.”
To help provide for her son, Radarra worked with her aunt who owned an in-home healthcare business that provided a lot of care to the Jewish community. She cared for prominent figures like the founder of RACC and former mayor Victor Yarnell. Through this work, Radarra became exposed to politics, jumpstarting her passion for violence prevention.
A few years later, Radarra moved herself and her son to Florida in search of new opportunities. Here, she became involved in local Democratic Clubs and Moms Demand Action groups, attending rallies, marches, and meeting influential members of society. When she heard her cousin had been shot and killed, she decided to move back to Reading and joined a local Moms Demand Action group, becoming more heavily involved in gun violence prevention. She realized no one in the community was actively fighting against gun violence, and therefore she needed to put in the work herself.
In 2018, Radarra began hosting community meetings and brought awareness to gun violence in Reading. After several Coffee with Moms events, she began to sense a pattern of subtle racial biases because most of the attendees were from suburban communities.
The group lacked involvement from moms who lived in the city limits. While Radarra was experiencing gunshots in her backyard, these other moms were talking about taking their kids to karate or other after-school activities. The group was great when bringing awareness to gun violence and advocating to change gun laws, but lacked when it came to actively engaging with communities of color: “I wanted to scream and say, ‘Just shut the fuck up. Shut up with this. What are we doing?’ And I can’t take this anymore. Like I have to do something.” And she did.
Radarra began developing her own organization, the Village of Reading (“the Village”). The program did not focus too heavily on gun violence intervention or prevention but was active in the community. When everything was shutting down during COVID, the Village was feeding kids in the park, delivering Easter baskets in the spring, and handing out warm pajamas in the winter. Radarra began recruiting with the help of friends who had experience with nonprofits and was successful in getting the Village designated as a 502(c)(3) nonprofit organization. She was doing all of this while working full-time to support her family.
At the same time, Radarra was educating herself about violence–what causes it, what can result from it. She wanted to know anything and everything she could to aid her fight against community violence. She attended training courses to provide trauma-informed care and learned about Community Violence Intervention (CVI) work. She heavily studied the work of Dr. Gary Slutkin and the CURE Violence program.
Then, due to her dedication, she was nominated for the CASA of Berks County Children’s Award. While she did not win the award, she gained the attention of the director of CASA of Berks County and Councilwoman Marcia Goodman-Hinnershitz, who offered Radarra their support for the Village. Representative Manny Guzman encouraged Radarra to apply for a Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) grant, which Radarra never thought she’d get but decided she had to try. Radarra did get it–$200,000 to fund the Village, and it hit her: “I’m going to probably cry because imposter syndrome, like here I was a teen mom that dropped out of high school, had all of these barriers. I got a GED. Never went to college. And this is like happening. I couldn’t believe it.” With this money, Radarra was able to quit her job and pursue this project full-time and “put all my eggs in this basket.” Using the money from the PCCD grant, Radarra developed four programs. The first two were both a brick-and-mortar resource center designed to connect youth with resources in the community and a digital version of that center.
The third program created support groups to aid the teens affected by violence and create a safe place to talk about violence and address social norms. The voluntary support groups were held every two weeks, led by Radarra and Rick Koch, a social worker. The groups were capped at 10 teens, and they maxed out nearly every session. The sessions would begin with one of three hands-on activities – photo voicing, using photography to express emotions; artwork with professional artists; or an outing to Berks Nature for fresh air, exercise, and relaxation. Then, sitting together around a meal, the teens talked about what
was on their minds. Expecting the teens to be reluctant to share their emotions and express their concerns, Radarra created cards to prompt conversations. But at that first support group, Radarra was surprised that the teens had written notes of what they wanted to talk about. From that moment through the following year, the conversations flowed.
The PCCD grant also funded the development of a community violence interruption program based on all Radarra had learned through studying the work of Dr. Slutkin and the CURE Violence model. CVI programs target high-risk individuals, connecting them to vital community resources, and work to resolve conflicts and prevent and deescalate violence.
During her time leading the Village, Radarra also started the Teen Café, a space to build community and trust with herself and teens. The culture was a truly teen-led space. It was their second home where they felt comfortable, a welcoming environment where teens could make their own rules and curse to express themselves. They knew they could come there and eat and just be themselves: “They didn’t have to worry about being censored. That old-school mentality didn’t fly at our café.” The Teen Café was so successful that the Village’s Board of Directors wanted to duplicate and put the Teen Café everywhere, in essence shifting the Village away from the community violence intervention work that is nationally recognized as effective in reducing gun violence.
Radarra strongly objected, telling them the Teen Café was “a vision of what the Village would be” but “that’s not what I got PCCD funding for. We need to slow down. We need to really work on developing our current programs and give CVI a chance because it was the only thing that was going to help reduce violence in the city.” The Board argued that the money through the PCCD needs to be spent before they lose it. Radarra argued back that she was communicating with the funding agency, and they knew she would be asking for extensions. The PCCD was also aware that building CVI programs takes time. Most of the funds went toward wages for CVI workers but Radarra struggled finding credible CVI workers and people she felt comfortable with.
During this time, the Reading Hospital reached out to Radarra asking if she would help develop their Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program. They’d become familiar with her knowledge and experience because about two years earlier, the hospital invited Radarra to meet with patients after they had been violently injured.
Radarra had a moment of self-reflection as she was cleaning out a new office space, asking herself, “Really, what is important to you? Do you want to do the work or do you want to continue trying to build this nonprofit with little to no support? What is really important?” She realized her real opportunity to do CVI work was with the hospital because they were also committed to the work. Radarra followed her heart, although it was a difficult decision to leave the organization she had built. Radarra announced in a letter to the Village of Reading Board that she was stepping down.
Radarra began work for the hospital. A creative person, she was excited to build on the Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program. She has been with the hospital since then. Her job involves implementing and overseeing.
Radarra has taken on numerous other roles to help reduce violence in Reading, the city she loves. She was also selected to partake in a study through the University of Washington and then introduced to the CVI Academy through the University of Chicago. Violence disruption work has existed since 1998 yet lacks structure for nationwide efforts. The Health Alliance
Lobby is trying to establish the foundation for the program as it gained new attention over the past few years. They were trying to come up with resource books and everything on how to implement these programs in other cities.
Radarra is also a trained peacemaker in the Not One More Youth Lost to Violence program because she remains committed to the significant changes CVI work can offer. Additionally, she started a new program called the Neighborhood Auntie for kids with a higher risk of getting involved in behaviors that may lead to violence. Teens asked Radarra, “Hey, do you know where I can find housing” or they’d tell her their situation. Many youth struggle with getting their basic needs met.
With the goal of helping to house and parent some of these kids, Radarra invited five teens to live with her. However, the house needed too much work, and she couldn’t find a contractor she could afford. She was living out of boxes and there was no functioning kitchen. On top of that, the five teens all had unique issues, including refusing to go to school, not helping around the house, and abusing drugs.
It became overwhelming for Radarra given the intensity of her work at the hospital. She’d work with victims of violence all day, followed by going home and doing case management with the teens living there. While she was at work, she was getting phone calls from teachers. She felt burnt out, unappreciated, and disrespected by the kids. Radarra rehoused the teens and found a new place to live. She felt guilty for “failing” them but knew she did not have the finances or the inner resources to house them.
Still, the Neighborhood Auntie continues. She began it “as an effort to keep those relationships that I built with the kids at the Village,” and she continues to do so even without housing kids. Nearly a year after leaving the Village, Radarra’s connections to the teens remain strong. They reach out to her often, sharing their struggles and their successes. In just the past week, Radarra spent 90 minutes on the phone with a teen who expressed her need for having safe spaces to talk about violence, as she’d experienced at The Village under Radarra’s leadership.
Radarra also received a message this past week from a male teen she’d met through the Village when she intervened in a fight at City Park. Putting her CVI knowledge to work, Radarra calmed him down and deescalated the situation. Radarra gave this young man her Instagram handle so he could let her know he’d arrived home safely. They kept the
conversation going through Instagram and formed a relationship. He’d let her know how he was feeling and what he was going through. Radarra provided support and mentorship and let him know he was smart and had a future, encouraging him to stay away from violence. In his voice message this past week, he told Radarra he’s “doing great” and was dating someone he cares about. He told Radarra that she is the person who “inspired him to change” and thanked her for her ongoing commitment to him throughout this past year.
Radarra’s childhood years were surrounded by walls of affliction, but she did not let them imprison her. Radarra is a survivor of gun violence, domestic abuse, and sexual assault. Despite her past trauma, Radarra is a devoted and proud mother and is actively invested in helping youth in her community overcome struggles of their own. She has made and continues to make a positive difference in many people’s lives. She is proud of the teen-led culture in Teen Café and hopes to be part of something like that soon. Her incredible story reminds us that despite our traumas and pain, we do not have to be victims, but we can be overcomers.