Back in April of 2017, when she was a graduate student working part-time at the Norma and Joseph Robinson Partnership Library in Sulphur Springs, poet Yuki Jackson was present at three shootings that took place just outside the library within the space of five days. All three of the shootings took place in broad daylight, and all three involved youths under the age of 14.
“Thankfully, with those shootings, nobody got killed,” Jackson says.
Though she wasn’t directly involved with any of the incidents, they did profoundly change her life, setting her on a course that would lead her to running an after-school program at the library for the kids in the neighborhood.
“It just really drove it home for me,” she says. “I really believe that a part of the function or purpose of that happening was to wake me up, if that makes any sense. It was just this immediate, seemingly almost involuntary response to it.”
And thus, The Battleground was born in July of 2017.
Beginning in September of last year, every Thursday at 4 p.m., Garret Brumfield of Tampa studio Tampa Wing Chun Kung Fu teaches a martial arts class, followed by a poetry and hip-hop session led by Jackson at 5 p.m. Jackson says the programs draw around 25 regulars under the age of 18 every week; The Battleground’s Poetry Pizza Party, held on the third Saturday of every month from 3-4 p.m., draws a somewhat larger crowd.
When asked where she landed upon the combination of hip-hop, poetry and martial arts, Jackson quasi-jokes that it came from being a huge Wu-Tang Clan fan.
“I think that’s initially where that association formed subconsciously,” she says with a laugh.
Honestly, taking a look around the neighborhood, Jackson noticed that rapping and roughhousing were among the kids’ favorite activities — it made sense to use their interests to help educate and empower them while giving them an opportunity to express their creativity as well as a safe space to get physical and blow off some steam.
“The whole purpose is not to repress the kids’ inclinations, but to channel them,” she says. “We don’t tell them this straight out [about the martial arts training], but they’re actually learning not to fight.”
Funding for the program is a little tight; Jackson and Brumfield spent a while paying for everything out of pocket, until The Battleground found a sponsor in the Pinellas literary nonprofit Keep St. Pete Lit, which does what it can to help. In June, The Battlefield threw a fundraiser at Lector Wine Shoppe & Social Club, which put a little cash in the coffers — Jackson is hoping to find more opportunities for funding, and would like the next iteration of The Battleground to offer incentives like meals or gift cards for the kids who commit to regular attendance over 12-week “modules.”
“Ultimately a big incentive I’m trying to work toward is to feature the kids’ words on a mural in Sulphur Springs,” she says.
It can be tough balancing their work, lives and The Battleground, but Jackson and Brumfield are committed to helping the kids of Sulphur Springs, and they’ve found some help as they continue to pick up momentum — two of Brumfield’s students volunteer their time when they can, and Jackson’s lyrical program has gotten a boost from local hip-hop artist Chael Blinya, whose work she and her “students” have studied.
“I fell in love with the children, community and neighborhood as a whole,” Jackson wrote in an email prior to her interview with CL. “I saw the beautiful vibrancy, strength and humor that is pervasive within that community amidst the stark conditions of the high poverty, high violence, and low literacy rates.”
The Battleground will resume its weekly Thursday events on Aug. 29. To find out more, visit facebook.com/TheBattlegroundSulphurSprings/ or TheBattlegroundSulphurSprings on Instagram.
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This article appears in Aug 1-8, 2019.