MLK Avenue, Deerfield Beach, FL - The most easily overlooked.

I cross this MLK Avenue every day that I attend classes on the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University, and yet I have failed to blog about it. I guess it is long past time that I write about my very own hometown "MLK Avenue."


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I'm not going to do a formal "report card" on Deerfield Beach's MLK Avenue because it is almost entirely a residential area. There are a cluster of businesses where it intersects with Hillsboro Blvd., and there is even a franchised restaurant there, but it is otherwise not a very nice residential area. Poverty is a part of everyday life here, and the schools in the area all qualify as "Title 1" schools. That, as much as anything else, is the true signature of a low-income area.

Deerfield Beach Elementary School actually fronts right on MLK Avenue, but it is Deerfield Beach Middle School (a short walk east over the railroad tracks) and Deerfield Beach High School (a short walk south of where MLK Avenue ends near SW 10th Street) that have garnered all of the international media attention in the last year. It is my opinion that the behavior that attracted this attention is deeply rooted in marginalized populations and it is not unique to Deerfield Beach. It just happened to come to a head here within the last year for one reason or another.

Before I link you to the stories, let me first say that I am taking an upper level course entitled Sociology of Mental Health as one of my electives this semester. It goes into great detail as to how status and role play into emotional health. When you are poor it dramatically increases the probability that distress will be experienced within families. While race does play a major role in this neighborhood, these events in Deerfield Beach had more to do with poverty and the difficulties associated with life in the inner-city than it did race.

The first event happened on October 12, 2009 (just over a year ago) when 15-year-old Michael Brewer was doused in a flammable liquid and set on fire. He told a live international television audience that his school was a "terrible" school. I'll let you read up on the details, but I remember my facts correctly it had to do with a bike, a video game, and $40.

The second event was in March 2010, just when Michael Brewer was getting out of the burn unit. Jocie Lou Ratley had her head stomped and kicked with steel-toed boots as a consequence of an insensitive text message that she sent to Wayne Treacy. They kept her in a medically induced coma for weeks and the brain damage will require years of therapy to compensate for. She will never be the same person. It is not expected to be a complete recovery.

Last month there was yet another tragic event in this neighborhood. In what has been described as an accident, 12-year-old Anthony Alejandre was shot in the face by his 17 year old friend, Jose Torres. The two families were very close. Jose Torres' room was described as a "small arsenal." The boys lived across the street from each other, two blocks east of MLK Avenue in Deerfield Beach.

Yes, these events could have happened anywhere in America, but they happen most often in the inner-city. School counselors are consistently over-worked in these schools, and these schools depend on a tax base that is far less affluent than the schools in the suburbs. The parents in these schools have less time to be engaged in school activities, and they often work longer hours, irregular hours, shift work, or more than one job, leaving the kids alone more as "latch key" kids.

And yet today there is an online story that I found that was carried by The Bellingham Herald, a city that touches the Canadian border and the Pacific Ocean in Washington State. Why this version of the story was at the top of my search results I cannot tell you, but I found it interesting that it is literally the furthest possible city from Deerfield Beach within the continental United States, and yet people there seem to be following the series of events that have taken place here, in schools where my kids would be attending classes if this was happening 10 years ago.

The story that I found today focuses on a few of the positive things that are happening in this neighborhood that borders MLK Avenue here in Deerfield Beach. It talks of how an investment in time and attention will make a difference. Those are two things that I personally am willing to invest in making this country a better place, and I'm starting here at home in South Florida. Please join me.

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