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‘Guns Down, Gloves Up’ arming kids in Trenton against street violence
August 21, 2024 | Bobby Brier, Mental Health Writer, Genesis Obando
On a recent humid afternoon, Mike Hilton stood drenched in sweat beside the ring at the Ike Williams Boxing Academy in Trenton and spoke about the life lessons he aims to instill in young people through the sport.
“I was telling the kids that out here on the floor, work is just like in schoolwork, just like anything in life. When you get instructions to do certain things, you got to follow those instructions and do them,” Hilton said.
Hilton is a 37-year-old native of Trenton and a championship-winning professional boxer. Eric Judkins, Hilton’s coach, opened the Ike Williams Boxing Academy with Hilton and his colleagues in 2013.
Hilton’s emphasis on the importance of work ethic and proper technique came during a recent training session for the “Guns Down, Gloves Up” summer boxing program, where he serves as the head trainer. Now in its third year, the program aims to teach kids between the ages of seven and 17 the sport of boxing while instilling confidence, self-discipline and techniques for emotional regulation and self-protection.
Mike Hilton (left) works with a child during a “Guns Down, Gloves Up” session at the Ike Williams Boxing Academy in Trenton on July 24, 2024.
The program is also important because it gives kids an alternative to “settling beef with bullets,” said Pastor Antonio Bellamy, the program coordinator for the Trenton Restorative Street Team at Salvation and Social Justice.
The street team is a group of professionally trained workers from the city aiming to prevent violence and promote peace and healing through “restorative justice practices.” These include grief groups, candlelight vigils, mental health support and youth mentoring, among many other services. The team launched the boxing program on July 15.
The push by coaches and members of the Trenton-based nonprofit to continue offering the summer boxing program, which ends this week, comes as 14 people had been murdered this year in the capital city as of late July, according to Bellamy. As of late August, there have been over 350 mass shootings across the country and over 20,000 people injured due to gun violence so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Hurt by gun violence
Black Americans experience a disproportionate burden of violent injury and exposure to firearm violence, according to studies cited in a May report from the Journal of Urban Health. Firearm-related violence is the leading cause of death and disability among Black boys and men ages 15-34 and the second-leading cause of death for Black girls and women ages 15-24, according to a study cited in the report.
Additionally, Black Americans are far more likely than those in other racial groups to be exposed to gun violence in the neighborhoods where they live, the report notes. Chronic exposure to community violence is associated with a host of health problems including depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, poorer physical health, desensitization and chronic illness.
The coaches and mentors at “Guns Down, Gloves Up” aim to reverse those trends, one boxing lesson at a time.
Kids from across the city participate in the program, including some from different areas that could be territorial, according to Bellamy. Because of the team-oriented nature of “Guns Down, Gloves Up,” they are less likely to have conflicts with one another outside of the program, Bellamy said. The initiative has grown from enrolling 20 to 25 kids during its first summer to now having 45 kids signed up, with the capacity for 50 to enroll.
“It’s not just about what they learned here; it’s how they get an opportunity to apply what they learn here, out there. That’s really the transformative part of what we do as a restorative organization at Salvation and Social Justice,” said Bellamy, adding that clinicians have come to the program to speak to kids about addressing their emotions.
‘This program means everything to me’
For 14-year-old Myaziah Burton, the program has been helpful not only for learning self-defense techniques, but for overcoming new challenges posed by the demands of the sport. Burton also encouraged new kids to join.
“I feel like people should come because you don’t know what you’re capable of. You don’t know what you could really do,” said Burton, who won MVP of the program last year and is hoping to win again this year. “This program mean[s] everything to me.”
Exercise has long been known to improve physical and mental health by reducing stress, anxiety and depression. A 2022 report published in JAMA Psychiatry that studied the link between physical activity and depression suggested that there are “significant mental health benefits” from being physically active, even at levels below public health recommendations. Health practitioners should therefore encourage any increase in physical activity to improve mental health, according to the report.
Criminal justice experts, including Jason Williams of Montclair State University, say the summer boxing program is a “very important tool” that community-based organizations can use to transform how young people engage in their emotional development.
“When I think about the boxing program, it certainly does not only provide a sense of discipline for these kids but teaches them how to better go about expressing their emotions, instead of going out in the streets and expressing it in ways that are going to lead to gun violence,” said Williams, an associate professor of justice studies at the university.
Proof of success
Historically, these programs have been shown to work, but over time they have been defunded, much like community policing initiatives that used to exist in the 1990s, which also funded these types of activities, according to Williams.
“The ‘Guns Down, Gloves Up’ summer boxing program is really a lifeline, especially for that age range that we disproportionately see represented in both gun violence perpetrators and victims,” said Michael B. Mitchell, an assistant professor in the departments of African American studies and criminology at The College of New Jersey. Mitchell participated in a similar program at the Garland Police Boxing Gym in Texas when he was a teenager, he said.
‘You can still learn from those who stand on the opposite side of issues from you. Their position, no matter how different, really does not make them any less deserving of respect and they’re learning those things in the program.’ — Racquel Romans-Henry, Salvation and Social Justice
More broadly, initiatives like the summer boxing program in Trenton and the Paterson Healing Collective’s 90-day “Summer Peace Challenge” create and foster pride in the community, which can also benefit mental health, according to Mitchell. The “Summer Peace Challenge” was launched by the Paterson Healing Collective on June 8 and encourages every neighborhood in the city to participate in the competition for a summer free from shootings and homicides.
In addition to teaching how to navigate and regulate challenging emotions, “Guns Down, Gloves Up” works to develop healthy conflict resolution skills, according to Racquel Romans-Henry, the policy director at Salvation and Social Justice.
Learning from opponents
“When you’re standing toe to toe with your peer in the ring, through this program you’re realizing that just because someone is your opponent doesn’t mean that they’re your enemy,” Romans-Henry said. “You can still learn from those who stand on the opposite side of issues from you. Their position, no matter how different, really does not make them any less deserving of respect and they’re learning those things in the program.”
The program and the sport of boxing have yielded benefits not just for the kids enrolled, but for the coaches themselves. Shaheed Brown, who said he had been shot at several times, said one particular incident had hindered his boxing career. Now, he puts his energy and passion for the sport into giving back and volunteering with the kids.
“For me, boxing is therapeutic, training is therapeutic,” said Brown, 40, one of the coaches with the program. “I learned things about myself, like pushing myself to certain limits, that I didn’t know existed within me. Boxing had a profound impact on me in a positive way.”
The work that the coaches put in with the kids week in and week out is “phenomenal,” Bellamy said, as they model a lifestyle that’s committed to minimizing murder in Trenton.
“They become a safe space for these young people to talk about life [and] about emotional skills,” Bellamy said. “The power of this program is the power of mentorship.”
— Video and photographs by Genesis Obando
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