A Nicetown community festival goes on amid — and despite — historic gun violence

Thousands of people are expected to head to Nicetown Park on Germantown Avenue on Friday and Saturday to eat, drink, listen to recording acts, watch boxing matches, be entertained by street performers, and celebrate the arts, culture and economic development of the Nicetown community.

Despite Philadelphia’s gun violence crisis, which has claimed 340 lives and more than 1,400 gunshot victims this year, organizers said there was never a doubt that the 20th annual Give Back Festival would go on.

» READ MORE: 300 people have been killed in Philly homicides already this year

“I felt the need to do it,” said Zakariyya Abdur Rahman, president and CEO of the Nicetown Community Development Corporation, the festival’s sponsor. “We cannot fall into the shadows of despair because of the issues that our community faces, the perils of violence. We felt that we needed to go forward with it to show that we can overcome anything as a community.”

The festival comes at a time when some other outdoor gatherings in the city have been canceled because of concerns about violence. The Philadelphia Police Department has denied more than 200 applications for block parties over safety concerns this year, a number officials said was consistent with recent years.

Just last month, West Philadelphia’s largest business association and City Councilmember Cindy Bass announced the cancellation of planned outdoor events, citing rising violence.

The West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative, which represents more than 2,000 businesses, wrote to its members that the West Fest Block Party was off just days after shootings on a rec center grounds and at a nearby funeral procession.

“Even with the support offered by the 18th Police District, I feel the risk is too great for us to continue this event as planned,” collaborative president Jabari K. Jones said.

And Bass, whose district includes Nicetown, took to Twitter to announce the cancellation of her annual Summer Event Series.

“We did not make this decision lightly and seriously considered the impact it might have on you, your family and friends,” Bass wrote in a statement posted on social media.

“However, at this time, your safety is my number one priority and given the current climate, my office is looking into bringing you alternative community events that may be a more suitable replacement for the Summer Event Series,” she said.

» READ MORE: Federal and city officials pledge better collaboration to combat gun violence

Bass later reconsidered and said the weekly Oldies in the Park series her office sponsors had resumed with increased security.

“We worked with the 14th Police District, which has done an outstanding job, and we also brought in additional security just to make sure everybody felt safe,” she said Thursday at the news conference heralding the Nicetown festival.

“This is the right thing to do and it’s the right time to do it,” Bass said of the festival during an interview. “It’s gone on for 20 years now, there’s never been an incident, it’s a well-respected and well-regarded event by the community, and people appreciate it.”

Stanley Crawford, a Nicetown CDC board member, said his concerns about violence encroaching on the festival were allayed when the organization hired a security company to work the event in conjunction with members of the nonprofit Black Male Community Council of Philadelphia and officers from the 39th Police District.

“I keep saying to anyone who asked me, the level of fear is legitimate in the city of Philadelphia. So each organization that’s contemplating having an event needs to do a deep dive into their security process, because the worse thing you want is for somebody to get hurt or killed at your event,” he said.

Sgt. Eric Gripp, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department, said that while the department has denied some block party permits because of concerns about crime, people should not fear attending outdoor community gatherings.

“As the commissioner has said in the past, people shouldn’t have to live in fear,” Gripp said. “People should be able to gather and feel safe in their own neighborhoods.”

For Nicetown CDC president Rahman, 62, and his wife, Taherrah, 61, gun violence is not an abstract community issue ― it is something that has devastated and redefined their lives.

In June 2009, their son Zakee, 19, was fatally shot while defending a female relative from an abusive partner, and eight years later, in August 2017, their son Zafir, 23, was killed in a drive-by shooting. The man who shot Zakee is in prison, while Zafir’s killer has never been caught, said their parents, who added that they draw inspiration from their sons’ deaths to do the work of improving the quality of life in Nicetown.

“We have faith that God will protect us, that’s the only thing that pushes me,” Taherrah Rahman, a cofounder of the Nicetown CDC, said in explaining the decision to continue the festival. “Losing my children moves me to do the work, because it is needed.”

Zakariyya Abdur Rahman said his sons had worked closely with him and his wife to support and expand the Give Back Festival, which now awards college scholarships in their names. More than $100,000 in scholarship money has been awarded at the festival over the last 10 years, he said.