Aqeela Sherrills was a key architect in the historic 1992 cease-fire between the Crips and Bloods in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In his keynote address, Aqeela will tell the story behind the creation of the peace treaty and the efforts of him and his colleagues during the past 12 years to sustain the peace in Los Angeles. He will share the anguish and the inspiration he experienced from losing his eldest son, Terrell, to violence in January. He will also share his thoughts on what he believes are the practical steps to launching the next major peace movement in the U.S. in his keynote address entitled Creating a Movement of the Heart.

Aqeela Sherrills is the youngest of 10 siblings raised in the Jordan Downs Housing Projects in Watts, California. At only 34 years old, Aqeela stands out as a guiding force in the re-development of the Watts community with the goal of making it a national model for positive growth and social change.

In 1989, after seeing 13 of his friends killed in the bloody gang war that was destroying his community, Aqeela was inspired with a vision to create peace in his neighborhood. In 1992, after laying years of ground work, Aqeela and his brother Daude successfully brought the neighborhood gangs together to sign a "Peace Treaty" between the Bloods and the Crips in Watts.

In 1999, Aqeela and his brother establish the Community Self Determination Institute (CSDI), a social-profit agency dedicated to the transformation of the Watts community. CSDI is one of the primary reasons that the peace settlement in Watts has had a lasting and binding effect and is now being emulated in other neighborhoods throughout Southern California. "Watts is the catalyst for the next major peace movement in this country” and CSDI is a vehicle for that change.

On January 10, 2004, Aqeela’s oldest son Terrell was murdered while home from his first semester of college. Although he died a violent death, “it’s not about who killed him, but the attitude of the culture, a lack of reverence for life that killed him”, said Aqeela. “I am not surrendering his life to death, but reclaiming it and giving it new meaning. It is my prayer that, in remembrance of Terrell, each life be lived to its fullest and each dream be realized, for Terrell’s life and death offers to us strength to go beyond the fear and doubt and hopelessness of the world and live into the eternal truth of the power of the resurrection”.

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