Community Mourns Life of Reporter – Used as a Human Shield
By Joyce Jones

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - On May 28, at 1:30 a.m., Andrew Lightman, managing editor of the Hill Rag and East of the River community newspapers in South East Washington, DC, received a disturbing telephone message from a homicide detective. When he returned the call, the detective asked whether he was driving or sitting down.

"I said, 'Yes, what do you mean?" and the detective says, 'I want you to know that your reporter, Charnice Milton, was shot,'" Lightman told a standing-room audience of family, friends and colleagues who gathered on June 5 to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of Milton at the Living Word Church in Washington, D.C.'s Seventh Ward.

Like everyone else when they learned that Milton had been killed, Lightman was stunned. Hours earlier, at approximately 9:45 pm, while waiting at a bus stop after covering a community advisory board meeting, Milton, 27, was struck by a bullet that was meant for somebody else. A teenager, who may have been the intended victim, reportedly grabbed Milton and used her as a human shield.

The bullet not only ended an innocent life, Lightman said, it also silenced a compelling voice.

News of the death shook media colleagues in the D.C. area; especially given her youth.

"I never had the pleasure to meet Charnice, but from her reputation as a journalist, it seems she was a model for all of us," said Capital Press Club President Hazel Trice Edney. "Too often reporters have chosen the safer or more comfortable beats to cover. But Charnice chose to follow her heart and her passion to cover those voices that we may not otherwise hear. It is certain that her legacy will continue to remind us all of that noble calling to 'afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.'"

During the three-hour service, several people praised Milton, who had dedicated her career to giving a voice to District residents and communities that are often ignored and unheard. Her steadfast commitment was remarkable in part because she had so valiantly overcome her own issues—Asberger's and a severe stutter—to develop the skills necessary to tell other people's stories.

Milton, a graduate of Ball State University, earned a master's degree in magazine, newspaper and online journalism with honors from Syracuse University's prestigious S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2011. Syracuse has announced that Milton will be among the names considered for the Newseum's 2015 memorial to slain journalists.

Cora Masters Barry, widow of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, was one of several prominent public figures who came to honor the young reporter. Barry said Milton embodied all of the guiding principles that her Southeast Tennis and Learning Center has worked to instill in the thousands of children and teens who've come through its doors to go as far as the world can take them.

Praising Milton's willingness to represent and serve the community in which she lived, Barry recalled how deeply Milton had impressed her husband.

"’She's so gifted, she's so thorough. She asked me questions I wasn't even thinking about,’” Masters recalled him saying. "He said she's going to be a bright star and then corrected himself to say she is a bright star,” Masters recalled. “Her star still shines among us. She is an example for our young people. We will keep her in our hearts and she will be up in our center as an example [of] how to live your life."

Julianne Malveaux, columnist, economist and a former president of Benedict College for Women, appeared in a video tribute to Milton.

"She wanted to report on the people east of the river who never attracted the attention of the Washington Post or the New York Times," said Malveaux, who'd worked on a project with Milton.

She added that Milton’s death is exactly the "kind of story that she'd dig into…She made you think," Malveaux said. "They shattered her body [but] her spirit lives on in each one of us."

Yvette Alexander, who sits on the D.C. City Council, said when she first met Milton, she was frankly "baffled" that this shy young woman with a speech impediment, had chosen to become a journalist.

"She taught me patience and when I read the articles, I knew she was a force to be reckoned with," Alexander tearfully recalled. "Charnice told our story and that's why I will miss her so much."

Southeast Washington's story is not about homicides, failing schools or poverty, Alexander said. "Our story is about the love in our community. We're going to get who did this."

The killers "do not know the God that we know. I challenge you to show young people love so they know that someone cares about them, and we won't have to go through this again," she challenged the audience.

Several speakers, including Rev. Donald Isaac, who chairs the D.C. mayor's interfaith committee, said Milton's death should be a call to action to end the violence that continues to plague the city and African-American communities around the nation.

"We have to take a stand. Just like we were able to overcome slavery, just as we were able to overcome segregation, we need to put into practice the belief that we can" end this violence, Isaac said.

Living Word's pastor, S. Patrice Sheppard, echoed that sentiment. Recalling the public service campaign that urges people to speak up if they witness something wrong, she said, "If you see something, say something. Go back and tell people in your neighborhoods if you see something, say something. And don't just say it to each other. Say it to somebody who can do something about it."

The hope is that the mantra will encourage witnesses who may have information about Milton's shooting death to come forward.

"This kind of gathering is never easy; it's a time of mixed emotions. This is a time when pastors wish that we didn't have to serve. There's certainly no pleasure in saying goodbye, especially to someone who was so very special to us. It is a time indeed of great loss," said the church's senior pastor, Eugene Sheppard, who delivered a stirring eulogy.

And despite the grief everyone was feeling, "we gather in the midst of hope—hope that comes from our faith," he added.

He also challenged the audience and the city's pastors to join together to make sure that those responsible for her death are held accountable; and not "let our baby have died in vain."