PART ONE IN A CONTINUING SERIES ON THE IMPACT OF GUNS
Markiya Dickson’s family gathers at Sallie’s Kitchen, which her grandfather Preston Dickson (left) co-owns. WIth him are (from left) Ciara Dickson, Mark Whitfield Jr., Samaya Dickson and Mark Whitfield.
You would have loved Markiya Dickson, her father tells me as we sit, talking, in her grandfather’s restaurant, Sallie’s Kitchen, with her mother and cousin.
“She would have come here and hugged you, straight up,” Mark Whitfield says of his daughter.
“And took your phone and took pictures and made videos,” adds her mother, Ciara Dickson.
“You would have got home and said, ‘That little girl put pictures and videos on my phone,’ ” Whitfield continues. “That’s how she did everybody.”
Ciara’s first cousin Raymond Dickson Jr. describes Markiya as a loving, spunky and witty third grader who liked rap music and Justin Bieber. He shows me a video of 9-year-old Markiya in her grandfather Preston Dickson’s garden, where she and her 11-year-old sister, Samaya, were helping out. In the video, her grandfather points the camera toward Markiya and quizzes: “What did you do [to help]?”
“Plant the seeds,” she answers adorably, then rolls her eyes when he teases: “And ate!”
That was May 19, and the girls’ grandfather planned to have them come back in two weeks to see how the tomato, pepper and squash plants were doing.
A week later, Markiya; her parents; Samaya; and her 1-year-old brother, Mark Jr., were at Carter Jones Park off Bainbridge Street for a Memorial Day weekend celebration on May 26. Music was playing, children were running around. There were pony rides. It was getting late, around 7 p.m., and the family was ready to leave, Whitfield says, but the girls wanted to ride the horses one more time.
In an instant, their world collapsed. Whitfield heard gunshots and saw smoke coming from the direction of the basketball courts. He ran toward the girls, bullets whizzing past him.
“They weren’t even 20 feet away from me,” he says. “Everybody started running away.” Samaya ran, and Markiya tried to run, too, but she was struck down.
“I’m the one that picked her up,” Whitfield says. They rushed to VCU Medical Center in a friend’s car, but it was too late.
“She was gone,” he says. “She died immediately.”
Whitfield doesn’t like to talk about that day. Neither does Ciara Dickson.
“It makes me relive it all over again,” she says. Both say they aren’t the same people they were before. “I don’t even know that dude,” Whitfield says. “I felt him leave my body that day.”
Ciara says she used to enjoy going out and being around people, laughing and joking. Now she’d rather avoid people and stay home, where she feels safer. In August, she posted on Facebook that she goes to sleep crying and wakes up crying, and she promises Markiya, “I will always fight for you.”
Markiya’s presence is palpable in Sallie’s, located just off Interstate 95 south of Richmond at the Willis Road exit. A bench painted with her likeness greets customers, a table at the entrance is filled with family pictures, and a poster-size picture of her dazzling smile graces the dining room.
“Every time Junior sees a picture of her, he tries to talk to her and hug her picture and kiss it,” Ciara says.
The family wants to make sure that Mark Jr. knows who Markiya was.
“He’s going to remember his sister because we’re going to keep her name alive,” Whitfield says.
They’re also determined that their daughter will be remembered for more than the random act of violence that took her life.
In the months after her death, the family started an organization called MSD Cares — using Markiya’s initials — in an effort to bring those responsible for her death to justice and to address the kinds of social issues that often lead to deadly violence.
MSD Cares’ Facebook posts have urged potential witnesses to the shooting to contact police and have shared pictures of the three suspects in the case. The family has also printed T-shirts and buttons with Markiya’s picture and held awareness-raising events such as a karaoke night at Sallie’s Kitchen and a “Unicorn Talent Show Celebration” at Carter Jones Park, both in August. That’s just the beginning, they say.
“Everybody’s going to know who Markiya Simone Dickson is,” Whitfield says. “I’m not going to let up.”
A display of family pictures in the restaurant’s entrance
The May 26 park shooting, which also injured an 11-year-old boy who was struck in the arm, provoked grief and outrage in the community, amplified by the mass shooting that killed 12 people in Virginia Beach the same week.
In response to these events, Gov. Ralph Northam called for a special July session of the General Assembly to address gun violence, and he scheduled a series of roundtables in order to discuss the issue. Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney introduced a measure to ban firearms in city-owned buildings, parks and community facilities. City Council approved the ordinance in July, but it won’t take effect unless the General Assembly gives localities the authority to enact such regulations.
Whitfield, who was just 5 years old when his father was robbed and shot to death three decades ago while returning home from work as a truck driver, participated in a June 17 roundtable with Stoney, Sen. Tim Kaine and Brian Moran, Virginia’s secretary of public safety and homeland security. He says he told the group that it’s going to take more than legal restrictions to reduce gun violence. A gun owner himself, Whitfield says he values his right to bear arms for self-defense.
“It starts with the people,” he says. “You’ve got to change people’s minds. People’s thinking patterns.”
And, adds Raymond Dickson, “Change people’s hearts. That’s our main focus right now. You’ve got to let people understand they’ve got a future. These kids out here, they are in survival mode. You’ve got to get them out of survival mode and get them into thriving mode.”
They point out that the suspects in Markiya’s fatal shooting are kids themselves — 18, 20 and 21 years old.
MSD Cares’ next steps will be to pursue nonprofit status and to begin working in one community at a time, starting with the area around Carter Jones Park, Whitfield says. They plan to hold town halls that will allow both youth and adult residents to voice concerns and work together to develop solutions. Longer term, they hope to establish a center that offers tutoring for youth and job-search assistance for adults, as well as classes, computer access and recreational activities.
“If we can affect one 10-year-old, then we will affect his whole family,” Raymond Dickson says. “Then we change the course of his life.”
