It’s been three years since 19-year-old Ja’Leel Stephens died, but Christina Cromartie has no doubt her son’s spirit can still be felt in Fayetteville.
He’s there each time her group of 23 kickball players, ages ranging from 10 to 19, gather at J.S. Spivey Recreation Center to practice for a game. He’s there when she gets a new idea for how she can help the community she loves. He’s there when she hears about the impact her kickball team has had and feels warm all over.
Most importantly, he’s there at the center of it all through the Ja’Leel Stephens Heals program, the nonprofit Cromartie put together in 2022 that she hopes will one day provide educational opportunities, housing and nutrition for at-risk youth in Cumberland County.
The program began with a grassroots kickball team in 2018, several years before Ja’Leel’s death. Throughout that summer, Cromartie said she saw firsthand the impact something so simple could have on issues so complex. Teenagers struggling with family troubles, the structural issues associated with committing a crime, and a host of other problems found solace in the kickball field. Cromartie paid out of her own pocket to supply snacks at games, and Ja’Leel and his sister Jahnice served as team captains.
But the team fell apart, Cromartie said. She couldn’t keep funding it by herself, and team members’ parents didn’t provide the support she’d hoped for. The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 further prevented getting a team back together.
In the weeks before Ja’Leel’s death, Cromartie and her only son had discussed bringing back the team. They felt it could have a real impact on the community, especially in a county where gun violence among teens had become an increasingly prevalent issue.
Then, on June 10, 2021, Ja’Leel and his cousin were killed on his 19th birthday on a trip to Myrtle Beach, and Cromartie’s world stopped.
Navigating grief
The loss of her first child shattered Cromartie, who was still struggling with the recent death of her mother. For almost two years, she sought justice for her son in South Carolina’s legal system, only for a judge to dismiss murder charges against the shooter in April 2023 after a “Stand Your Ground” hearing. Court documents stated that Ja’Leel was shot after his cousin allegedly held the shooter’s friend at gunpoint and Ja’Leel allegedly began to hit the man, WMBF News reported.
Cromartie was devastated by the thought that she wouldn’t get justice for her son.
“I think about it every day. ‘He didn’t get justice. He didn’t get justice.’ OK, ‘what are you going to do?’” she said. “That’s what I had asked myself.”
Determined to turn her grief into something positive, Cromartie decided to bring renewed life to her two nonprofits — the kickball team, now named the Ja’Leel Stephens Heals Program, and CarolRell’s Battered Center, a shelter for those experiencing domestic violence named after Cromartie’s late mother and brother. The shelter initially opened in 2017, but Cromartie was forced to temporarily close it after a dispute with a landlord led to her losing the Hay Street building in 2022, she said.
This spring, she sat down with Jahnice, her 18-year-old eldest daughter, and several kids they knew.
“We talked about it and we said, ‘It’s time,’” Cromartie said. “They used kickball for an outlet in 2018, and we noticed that they still use it for an outlet. No matter what they go through, they take the anger out on the field.”
The team had its first practice last month.
‘It’s going to help the world’
Kanon Atkins, 19, is one of the kickball team’s captains. He said he’s used the team as a distraction from his problems, and he knows of two friends who have gotten jobs and another friend who is working to go back to school after joining the team.
“I’ll go out there and put it on the field,” Atkins told CityView.
Jahnice Cromartie, Ja’Leel’s younger sister, said the team’s rebirth has helped her cope with her grief.
“I feel like it helps me mentally and emotionally,” she said. “It helps me with my anger.”
And every day, Cromartie said, she sees proof that the program is needed. She recounted a recent incident where two players got into an argument, ending with one player pulling a gun on the other.
“We had to separate them and we had to remove both of them off the property,” she said. “But they both wanted to play so bad, they contacted me.”
She brought the involved players’ families together and is working to educate the players on why violence is not the answer, Cromartie said.
“That’s what these young kids are doing, and there’s no guidance out here to ‘put it down, let’s solve this another way,’” she said.
The boys told her they wanted to do better out of respect for Ja’Leel, something that deeply moved her.
“It’s not really just kickball,” she said. “It’s more than that.”
And Cromartie is working to prove that to the players on the team. After overhearing a negative conversation about the police during a practice, she reached out to the Fayetteville Police Department to ask them to play against her team, hoping the interaction would improve their perception of law enforcement. It was an immediate “yes” from the department, and Cromartie’s team beat the officers 15-3 on May 25 after seven days straight of practice, she said.
“They’re still talking about it,” Cromartie said, beaming. “They want to sit down and have a talk, so I’m going to set that up … It gave them a different outlook.”
Through this work, she said, she knows she can make a difference, for both her family and others.
“It helps my children, and in the process, it’s going to help the world,” Cromartie said. “We’re going to save a life one person at a time the best way we can.”
How to help
To fully realize her vision, Cromartie said, she needs as much help from the community as she can get. Her wishlist includes:
- A building to host CarolRell’s Battered Center in one half and the Ja’Leel Stephens Heals program hub for youth in the other
- Cleats for the kickball team
- Money to purchase necessary supplies
- Partnerships with other local organizations like peer support groups
The players have asked to go on a trip to the beach, she said, something she hopes to be able to do for them soon.
“That’s why I’m going to keep going and going and going,” she said. “A door is going to open somewhere.”
If nothing else, Cromartie said, she knows her program is keeping young people off the streets.
“I’m willing to sacrifice everything in me for them, because if they want to stay out there, if at 9 o’clock there’s a friend calling and saying, ‘Hey, let’s go stick up a store’ or something, guess where they’re at?” she said. “They’re on the field. [We] don’t have to worry about them. They are in a safe place.”
And when that safe place goes away, the community sees the consequences, Cromartie said. A participant in the 2018 kickball team recently received two life sentences in prison, she said.
“Just imagine if we had a building then. If we would’ve kept going, if we’d had the right support from the community, he probably would still be here,” she said. “My son would probably still be here. A lot of teens would still be here.”
But rather than dwelling on the past, Cromartie is intent on building a better future for Fayetteville teens through her programs, one game at a time. The Ja’Leel Stephens Heals team is set to play local probation officers at 4 p.m. June 22, she said, grinning.
“[Ja’Leel] knowing that they’re playing these games and they’re getting healed, that lets me know he’s here,” Cromartie said. “His spirit will forever linger on, and we’re going to forever say his name.”
Reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at lsolomon@cityviewnc.com or 910-423-6500.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
