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Faced With Common Problems, Long-Time Chicago Rivals Meet To Break Bread

By Sean Cole

Published August 7, 2013 at 7:11 PM EDT

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Derrick Durr

http://www.thestory.org/sites/default/files/public/audio/story/2013_08_07_enemies_meet.mp3

Chicago activist Derrick Durr says young black men are fed a “spoonful of hate” every day when city police stop them, rough them up and search them. Over the past years, as friends and neighbors have died, he slowly hatched the idea of getting rivals together for a meal. When it happned this year, 60 young men met at a Chicago steakhouse. People paired off and talked and made amends, and so far the truce is working. “We’ve got all these problems and I thought, ‘Why can’t we handle it on our own?’” Durr says in this conversation with guest host Sean Cole. He says he’s won the city-wide Heavy Weight Golden Gloves boxing title, and that he’s thinking of running for local office.

Also in this edition of The Story: Walking along the Hudson River, guest host Sean Cole and his friend Malissa O’Donnell discover a monument to two poetry heroes.