As the friends and family of Malachi Lukes filed into Shaw’s Lincoln Temple church Thursday night, brightly colored balloons floated peacefully above the stage. “Happy Birthday,” they read.
A poster covered in children’s handwriting displayed a more jarring message nearby: “Rest In Paradise—Malachi.”
Lukes was fatally shot on Sunday, just days before his 14th birthday and not far from his home in the Shaw and his school, the Cardozo Education Campus. D.C. police are still investigating his killing; no arrests have been announced, but detectives are reportedly exploring a potential link between the shooting, which took place on the 600 block of S Street NW, and another shooting that occurred a few blocks away the week before.
Hundreds of people gathered at the historic Lincoln Temple to honor Lukes’ life. More than half of them were youth, and many wore t-shirts and hoodies with a photo of Lukes printed on them.
The memorial was led by Sudi West, who mentored Lukes at the Shaw Community Center, which West runs from the basement of Lincoln Temple.
“This is a very difficult reason to be assembled,” West said, fighting back tears.
In his speech, he described Lukes as a “young leader” and “messenger” who cared deeply about improving his community. “This is how he lived from his infancy through childhood and to his adolescence and young adulthood,” West proclaimed, “speaking out for those who did not have a voice and speaking out for justice.”
From a young age, Lukes immersed himself in the District’s theater scene and performed in various plays, his mother, Melissa Laws, told DCist. Last year, he played a lion in The Wizard of Shaw, a play about gentrification. In 2016, he appeared in Sheldon Scott’s Precious in Da Wadah, A Portrait of the Geechee, a performance piece about slavery held at the National Portrait Gallery.
More recently, Lukes helped West launch the Real News Camp, a youth program focused on social justice and the media. “He was so smart,” Laws said. “He was inspired by being part of this community center, by being part of the Real News Camp.”
Several negative encounters with police traumatized Lukes over the years, according to Laws. Last summer, he was handcuffed by Metro police officers at the Shaw Metro stop, in an incident that stirred controversy over the transit authority’s policing tactics. The arrest profoundly humiliated him, said his family members.
Natasha Muhammad, Lukes’ aunt, told DCist that the incident sparked his desire to speak out about social issues. “He just wasn’t one of those who would just say ‘ok, I’m just gonna follow the flow,'” she said. “He started becoming a voice for his peers.”
Muhammad recounted a conversation she had with her nephew after his handcuffing by Metro police. “I held his face, and I said: ‘It wasn’t right. But they can’t stop you. They can’t take that from you.'”
After a rousing speech Thursday night, Muhammad led the crowd in chanting “the people, united, will never be defeated.”
Lukes was an artist at heart, said Tyriell Marshall, a longtime friend of the family. “A free thinker—he had his own mindset,” noted Marshall. “He had the heart of a lion, too, so there was no stopping him from doing what he really wanted to do.”
Lukes’ death comes as officials struggle to contain an uptick in gun violence in the District, which has already seen 29 homicides in 2020—the same number as by this point last year. 2019 was the city’s deadliest year for homicides since 2008, when 186 were recorded.
At the vigil, Charles Allen, the D.C. Councilmember whose ward includes much of Shaw and who chairs the local legislature’s judiciary committee, said reducing gun violence presents complex challenges. “There is no single solution,” he acknowledged. Allen praised the Metropolitan Police Department for its quick response to Lukes’ shooting, but said stopping violent crime in the District would require more than policing alone.
“When I think about the work of our violence interrupters, our credible messengers through some of our youth work, that is where we have to push harder,” he said, referring to a relatively new city program that depends on community members to defuse disputes before they turn harmful. While the council and Mayor Muriel Bowser are acting with urgency to stem the violence, Allen said, more cooperation is needed throughout the city.
West, Lukes’ old mentor, told those gathered that teenagers like Lukes shouldn’t be blamed for the gun violence affecting D.C. “There’s a term that’s used too often in this city called ‘disconnected youth,'” West said during his speech. “I challenge any of you this evening to tell me where the disconnection lies. Whether it lies with them as youth finding their way in this world, seeking opportunity—or whether indeed it lies with us, as adults and decision-makers.”
