Community Violence

Roots and Realities

This series by Trace staff writer Mensah M. Dean examines how centuries of discrimination against African Americans has contributed to what feels like a never-ending cycle of gun violence in Philadelphia, where Black people are dying at disproportionate rates to this day. It’s set in a city that’s emblematic of this cycle, and home to the most enduring research on the topic.

Part 1 explores how centuries of inequitable social policy have kept the homicide rate for Black people in Philadelphia and elsewhere disproportionately high. 

In Part 2, Philadelphians who have lost grandfathers, brothers, cousins, and children to gunfire tell their stories. Their families’ intergenerational losses reflect the institutional racism at the root of America’s shooting epidemic. 

In Part 3, three Black Philadelphians speak about how intense financial need drove them to pick up a gun. Poverty is a major driver of gun violence, and Philly’s status as the nation’s poorest big city is strongly linked to its shootings.

Community Violence

Defined and Diminished by Gun Violence

Centuries of inequitable social policy have kept Black Philadelphians dying at disproportionately high rates.
Mensah M. Dean

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Lead Reporters

  • Mensah M. Dean

    Staff Writer, Philadelphia
    Before joining The Trace, Mensah was a staff writer on the Justice & Injustice team at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he focused on gun violence, corruption and wrongdoing in the public and private sectors for five years. Mensah also covered criminal courts, public schools and city government for the Philadelphia Daily News, the Inquirer’s sister publication. A native of Washington, D.C., Mensah began his career at The Washington Times. His freelance work has appeared in People and Vibe magazines. In 2022, Mensah was part of a team of Inquirer reporters who were Pulitzer Prize finalists for explanatory reporting for their yearlong chronicling of the impact of gun violence on Philadelphia. In 2019, he was named print journalist of the year by the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. In 2017 he received the Vernon Jarrett Medal for Journalistic Excellence and a $10,000 prize from Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication for writing a series of articles about a man who, at the time, had spent 37 years in solitary confinement. He graduated from Bowie State University in Maryland.