VISIONARIES: Amilcar “Milk” Hill and Rahwa Ghirmatzion
Posted on Thursday, January 7th, 2010
by block club
Parents Amilcar “Milk” Hill and Rahwa Ghirmatzion shouldn’t have much reason to celebrate. Their son, seven-year-old Asa Hill, died from complications after a massive car accident in early September.
But in the wake of such a horrible event has come a decidedly optimistic twist. Milk and Rahwa, who have strong family ties to the Elmwood Village and arts communities (Hill’s mother Lorna founded the Ujima Theatre Company), formed the Pro-Love Tour, a series of concerts that aims to spread the love, understanding and positive spirit that accompanied the family after Asa’s death. -Ben Siegel
Where did you find it in yourselves to turn this into something positive?
MILK The Pro-Love Tour was an opportunity for us to gather and to celebrate each other. Because we’re a tight-knit community, we have an opportunity to really exercise our capacity on a more regular basis. We reached out to people and saw that people really wanted to engage in that way.
Is this kind of neighborly love something that is missing from our lives?
MILK I am kind of overwhelmed that there is not a lack of love, actually. That people in our region, and even in this particular neighborhood [on Elmwood Avenue] have a lot of love and a really strong sense of community. We need to recognize it, nurture it and continue to grow it, rather than allowing anything to pull us away from it.
You see that our arts community has a lot of diversity, yet it’s under-funded. You see the fact that our economy is down and there’s not a lot of jobs for everybody, yet this is a great place to raise your children. When you think about the area, it’s really an incredible place to live, and the human capacity within the region is also incredible.
So it’s more of a re-charging of what we’re already doing, then?
RAHWA And really growing it, because I think we live in a bubble around this community. There are parts of this [city] that do not have a sense of community, and those are the people that we are really speaking to. I think a lot of young people feel very disconnected. They feel that they’re not empowered, and also they’re violent toward themselves and other people. Even in their tone and their conversation. We can harness this positive energy, harness it into something that’s a little more meaningful and empower them to be vested in parts of their community.
MILK The truth of the matter is, we are all the same. We are unified. We are one. There’s just no getting around it. We all want the same things. We want to be able to raise our children, have good days, contribute to our community, you know? That’s what we all want.
Why do you think that’s hard for people to understand?
MILK We keep looking at it as though it’s something on the other side of the fence. And it’s not on the other side of the fence. It’s right there. It has a big door, all we have to do is decide we want to open it and walk through.
Gary Earl Ross says: January 14th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Bless you both for the love you spread.