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Below is much of the text of a speech I delivered last weekend to a group of mothers. They are working to bring greater awareness to the violence that corrodes our society.

Violence is a growing worry in America and has reached crisis level in the black community. It has become society's method for settling disputes.

This spring, I spoke with sociology professor Carl Taylor of Michigan State University. Taylor, 57, is an expert on youth violence. He and I talked about its prevalence.

He looked back longingly at the days when folks used their fists -- not a gun or a knife -- to settle their differences.

"We had a good fight -- if there is a good fight," he said.

But something has gone frighteningly off-kilter. Today, we are witnessing outright ruthlessness.

The irony is that as society has become more violent, we've adopted a lingo to try to soften the outcome.

We don't kill people anymore. We take them out. We smoke them. We snuff them. We pop a cap in them.

Violence has gotten out of hand.

Several years ago, my elderly mother casually mentioned after watching the news, "Some young people these days would just as soon kill you as look at you."

So it is against that backdrop that we are gathered here this evening.

And my theme tonight is: hope.

Hope is such an energetic word. An inspiring word. An uplifting word.

We are here tonight because of hope.

Hope propelled three women in the throes of grief to come together in 2006 and say, "We're tired of the senseless violence."

Hope prompted them to reach out to one another and say, "You are not alone; maybe together we can make a difference."

Hope compelled them two Christmases ago to plant the seeds of love in children who have lost a parent to violence. Hope keeps them praying that their seeds help nurture traumatized children into successful adults.

Tonight, we pay homage to hope.

And hope is what we need to overcome this crisis of violence that confronts us all.

According to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, between 1999 and 2005, homicides among white men ages 25 to 44 involving guns rose 12 percent. The increase among black men of the same age was 31 percent.

Last year, The New York Times did a daily breakdown of gun deaths in America in 2004, the most recent year available. What the newspaper found was chilling.

In the 17 and under age group, on an average day in America:

n A white male was murdered every 30 hours.

n A black male was murdered every 24 hours.

n A female died every two days (that included suicides and accidental shootings).

In the 18 to 25 age group:

n One woman was murdered.

n Four white men were murdered

n Six black men were murdered.

In the 26 to 39 age group:

n Four white men were murdered.

n Six black men were murdered.

n One woman committed suicide.

And those are just gun deaths. The numbers don't include stabbings or domestic violence not involving firearms.

And as you know, women aren't the only victims of domestic abuse.

Like a cancer, if left unchecked, violence spreads.

So how do we check this enemy, this scourge that circulates freely among us?

Dare I say, the audacity of hope.

Hope that we will get serious enough in the Roanoke Valley to reverse this needless bloodshed.

Hope that fraternity brothers will get engaged in the battle for young men's futures by paring down the growing lists of boys waiting for mentors.

Hope that one day, Ebony magazine's coolest men of all time won't be the rich and famous known for their style, talent and looks, but husbands and fathers who go to work every day, then come home to love their wives and raise their children.

Speaking of cool: hope that education will again become cool.

Hope that parents will parent. But if they won't, that someone else -- a relative, friend, a neighbor -- will step in as they used to and correct the children.

Hope that mothers will teach their daughters that their bodies are their own, and they don't have to share them. That when they cede control of their bodies, they cede control of their destiny and their dreams.

Hope that young people will learn that every person who says they have your back -- doesn't. That every person who says they're your boy or your girl -- isn't.

Hope that we are prepared to concede that not everybody is salvageable. And that protecting criminals makes us part of the problem.

Hope that churches will spend a little less time preaching prosperity and a little more time teaching what God expects of us.

Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

If you're not biblically inclined, then consider the same message expressed by singer Jill Scott.

She soulfully croons:

"I can raise the child we'll make ... I can teach him how to walk and stand. But he needs you to help him be a man."

On a recent Sunday, my pastor told us, "Talk to our young people. And if they don't listen, just be there for them. And if you can't be there, pray for them."

Hope.

Hope is an energetic word. It's an inspiring word. An uplifting word.

Hope will sustain us until change comes.