Queen Latifah is co-hosting this year's 24 Hours of Peace in Newark starting Friday, Sept. 2 at 6 p.m. The Newark native and global star of stage and screen broke ground on a mixed-use development she is doing with local partners in the city in April 2022.Carucha Meuse Faal for NJ Advance Media

Newark’s 11th annual 24 Hours of Peace celebration starting Friday night will again be hosted by its founder, Mayor Ras Baraka. But he’ll be joined this year by fellow Newark native Queen Latifah as co-host, along with headliner Faith Evans, who also has Newark roots and a deeply personal reason to appeal for peace.

The event takes place from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 p.m. Saturday, on Springfield Avenue between Bergen and Blum streets. In addition to Evans, Friday’s performers include Fabolous and CL Smooth, the co-founder of 24 Hours of Peace, Hakim Green, and local talent. Saturday’s lineup includes Rowdy Rebel, Fivio Foreign, G Herbo and 2Rare. For details and updated information, check the 24hrsofpeace Instagram page.

The mayor is scheduled to address the event Friday at 7 p.m., followed by Latifah at 9.

Baraka launched the all-night-and-all-day gathering against violence 10 years ago in Newark’s South Ward, which he represented as a city councilman at the time. He expanded it to a citywide event two years after he was elected mayor in 2014. The Labor Day weekend tradition has only grown, with A-list and local entertainers on an outdoor stage, food and merchandise vendors, and community resources to combat violence and other ills.

“The 24 Hours of Peace event is more than an occasion to enjoy entertainment, food, poetry, and movies,” Baraka stated in an announcement of this year’s event. “It is a time for our residents to unify, to get access to important resources and information, to share ideas and solutions at a town hall meeting, and join together to end violence and move a peaceful Newark forward.”

Queen Latifah, born Dana Owens 52 years ago at St. Michael’s Hospital in Newark, has become an increasingly visible presence in Brick City, and not only on big and small screens or concert stages as a global star of film, television and music.

Apart from executive producing and playing the title character in the CBS crime series The Equalizer, one of Latifah’s current roles is that of real-life real estate developer.

In April, she appeared with Baraka at a groundbreaking ceremony for a mixed-use project she’s doing in partnership with local developers. It will include 60 two- and three-bedroom market-rate apartments in four townhouse clusters, plus 16 affordable units in a separate building in a neighborhood near the borders of the Central and South wards. Latifah and Baraka are about the same age and were family friends growing up.

“I’m proud to be from here,” Latifah said at the time.

Faith Evans, who grew up in Newark, headlines this year's 24 Hours of Peace celebration. The Grammy winner is seen here after being revealed as the Skunk on "The Masked Singer" in December 2021. © 2021 FOX MEDIA LLC.

Faith Evans, the headlining entertainer at this year’s event, also has Newark roots.

As a young child, Evans sang at the Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church on Chancellor Avenue, then performed jazz and other secular music up through her graduation from Newark’s University High School. Evans achieved critical and commercial success after being signed by Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs to his Bad Boy Entertainment label, then Capital Records and elsewhere.

“There’s no love like hometown love,” Evans, now 49, told a hometown audience during a Newark Founder’s Day performance in 2016. “Brick City, I love you.”

Gun violence struck close to home for Evans in 1997. She is the widow of rapper Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. “The Notorious B.I.G.” who was killed three years after the couple’s marriage in an unsolved drive-by shooting in Los Angeles amid what was hip hop’s sometimes deadly East Coast-West Coast rivalry of that time.

Before Baraka ever ran for office, curbing violence in Newark was a central plank of his political platform. The former Central High School principal and son of poet and activist Amiri Baraka co-founded the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition before winning a seat on the council and then election to the mayor’s post three times, most recently in May.

As mayor, he created the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery, which works with the anti-violence coalition and other community groups. On Aug. 20, Baraka led a citywide “Peace Walk” through all five wards to rally residents against gun violence in Newark and nationwide.

Newark experienced a spate of high-profile incidents earlier this summer amid an uptick in crime, perhaps amplified in the public consciousness by the series of mass shootings across the country.

But violence is actually down slightly in Newark at last glance. According to the latest year-to-date figures published online every week by the Newark Department of Public Safety, incidents of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, fell 1.2% overall for the period in 2022 ending on Aug. 28.

That said, the number of murders in the city was exactly the same this year as last for the period ending Sunday, at 37, after murders lagged behind 2021 for much of this year. Rapes fell 13% year to date, while aggravated assaults are down 5%. Robberies are up 11%.

Newark police will be on the scene to keep the peace for the 24-hour celebration, which doesn’t always prevent violence from breaking out elsewhere in the city even while the event is going on. In a bitter irony lost on no one, Newark experienced multiple homicides in other neighborhoods during or in the hours immediately after both the 2015 and 2016 peace events.

Police will also be on hand to enforce street closures Friday and Saturday. They include Springfield Avenue between Jacob and Bergen streets; Littleton Avenue between 16th and Springfield; Fairmount Avenue between 16th and Springfield; Bergen Street between 16th and 18th avenues; and South 6th Street between Springfield and 16th avenues.

Newark Public Safety Director Fritz G. Fragé warned of delays, and thanked the public in advance for its patience. He also asked for its help fighting crime, urging anyone with relevant information to call a 24-hour confidential tip line at 1-877-695-8477 or file a tip online.

Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka founded the 24 Hours of Peace Celebration while a city councilman representing the South Ward 10 years ago. Baraka led a "Citywide Peace March" through all five of wards in response to the city's gun violence in Newark on Aug. 20.Julian Leshay | For NJ Advance M

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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com

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