By Miles Layton

EDENTON — Seven years after a mother lost her son to gun violence, the movement that grew from her grief brought the community together Saturday around a simple promise: peace begins with us.

The Marcus Jackson Project hosted a forum on Saturday, Oct. 24, for neighbors, community leaders and public officials to discuss healing, unity and how Chowan County can build safer communities. Handouts carried the group’s guiding words: “Turning Pain into Purpose. Building Safer Communities.” Beneath them was a Peace Pledge built on three ideas: healing, unity and a brighter tomorrow.

Thanks go to Mike McArthur for the story’s featured photo.

Among those recognized was Marcus Jackson’s mother, Nicole Elliott. The project exists because of her son.

Marcus “Sno” Jackson was killed by gun violence on March 19, 2019. He was a son, a father, a brother and a friend, remembered for his smile, his energy and the way he lifted the people around him. In the months after his death, his family’s sorrow became the seed of something larger. Later that same year, The Marcus Jackson Project was founded, built on the belief that pain does not have to be the end of the story.

“What began as a mother’s grief transformed into a movement,” the organization says in its materials, one dedicated to healing, hope, violence prevention and community restoration.

Saturday’s forum showed how far that movement has reached.”

The program listed a wide range of local leaders, including Edenton-Chowan Board of Education Chairman George Lewis, Chowan County Commissioner Larry McLaughlin and Sheriff Edward “Scooter” Basnight.

Candidates for local, state and judicial offices were also listed: Sheriff candidate Kristy LaLonde, NC Senate candidate Roy Surrett, NC House candidate Miriam Rollin, E-C Board of Education candidate Florence Winslow, County Commission candidate Kathleen Miglorie, E-C Board of Education candidate Ollie Inglis and Judicial candidate Eula Reid.

The project has also built a record with Edenton-Chowan Public Schools, where it is not a new partner.

“Having that many people in one room, around one shared message, reflects the way the project works. It partners with schools, families, community organizations, law enforcement, faith communities and local leaders, and describes its approach as serving both individuals and the systems around them,” Lewis said. “Its goal is to address the root causes of violence while opening a path to healing.”

Lewis continued, “That path takes many forms. The project supports survivors of violence, empowers young people and leads wellness and peace education efforts. It also hosts community conversations like Saturday’s and events such as Sno Day, held in Jackson’s honor, and the annual Fall Festival. The festival fills a community space with games, music, food and youth activities, giving families a safe and welcoming place to be together.

For the project, those gatherings are the point. When children, families and neighbors feel valued and connected, organizers say, change is possible.”

The sheriff’s view

Basnight said the forum gave him a chance to hear from the people seeking office and to explain what his department is doing.

“What Marcus Jackson’s project is doing is great. We just need a little bit more community participation,” Basnight said. “It was nice to get in there and hear the other points of view from the people running for office, and to let them hear my side of things and what our office and the police department are doing together to make our community safer. How we’re collaborating, communicating – things that we haven’t done in many years.”

The sheriff pointed to numbers as evidence that the work is paying off.

“We’re really stepping it up and getting enforcement actions going to the point that you can look and see the numbers,” Basnight said. “The crime rate is down.”

He acknowledged that the progress has not been steady. The Sunday before the forum, he said, “we had a bad incident.” He did not describe it further to the Observer. Compared with two years ago, though, Basnight said the county is “heading in the right direction.”

A candidate for Chowan County Sheriff, LaLonde said the forum reflected the kind of conversation she believes the county needs.

“We cannot improve our community while stigmatizing mental health and substance use or shifting blame from one person or agency to another,” she said. “We must also stop blaming victims of violence and instead focus on compassion, accountability, and solutions. Calling out problems is easy; working together to solve them is where the real work begins.”

She said the responsibility is a shared one.

“We all have a role to play in bridging gaps, connecting people to resources, and ensuring no one falls through the cracks,” LaLonde said. “The Marcus Jackson Project is creating space for these important conversations and bringing our community together to identify solutions. I appreciated seeing candidates and elected officials engage in these discussions because meaningful change begins when we show up, listen, and work together.”

A pledge anyone can hold

The 2026 theme says it plainly: Honoring Lives. Inspiring Healing. Building Community.

The Peace Pledge handed out Saturday carried that theme into something anyone could hold. It did not ask a single agency or official to carry the work. It asked each reader to take part, and its closing line put the responsibility on everyone: peace begins with us.

That idea may be the project’s greatest strength. Violence leaves a mark on families and neighborhoods that no single program can erase. But the project’s founders and supporters have chosen to answer that loss with presence: showing up for survivors, for young people and for one another.

“Marcus is still loved. Marcus is still remembered,” the organization’s materials say. Seven years on, his name is attached to a mission that reaches classrooms, community centers and now a public forum where leaders and neighbors stood behind the same pledge.

More than a nonprofit, the group calls itself a movement rooted in love, resilience and remembrance, and in the belief that every life matters. Saturday offered a picture of what that belief can look like when a community chooses to act on it.

As Basnight put it, the work needs more hands. The pledge, at least, makes room for them.

Years of showing up

The forum was not the first time the project has drawn the community together. Nicole Layton, editor of the Chowan Herald, first covered the project years ago, including several of its annual Sno Day gatherings.

“What has always stood out to me is how the organization grew out of one family’s tragedy but became a source of support for so many other families affected by gun violence,” Layton said.

She remembers the second Sno Day, in 2020, when a memorial table was filled with photographs of people who had lost their lives to violence. “The number of photographs had roughly doubled from the previous year,” Layton said. “It was a powerful reminder that the grief doesn’t simply disappear with time. For those families, the loss remains part of their everyday lives, even years later.”

Layton said her conversations with the project’s founder have often turned to the latest tragedy in the community.

“What I’ve come to appreciate is that she understands the importance of connecting people who have experienced similar losses,” she said. Families affected by gun violence, Layton said, seem to find their way to the project and, through those connections, find support from others who understand what they’re going through.

The vision reaches past grief, though. “One of the things she’s consistently talked about is bringing together the different organizations and resources involved in violence prevention, mental health, youth services and victim support,” Layton said. “Too often, those efforts operate separately, even when they’re trying to address the same problems.” The aim is to have those resources work together, so families can find the help they need and the community can take a more coordinated approach to preventing violence.

“To me, that’s what distinguishes the Marcus Jackson Project,” Layton said. “It began as a way to honor Marcus, but its work has expanded into an effort to support other families and bring the community together around a difficult issue that doesn’t have an easy solution.”