MEET PEACE PORTRAITS HONOREE TAVARES HARRINGTON
Story + Creative Producer: Camille Travis | Video: 5 by 12 Films | Photography: Kelcey McKinney
Peace Portraits, presented by the Illinois Peace Project, is a visual series dedicated to spotlighting the extraordinary individuals working every day to build safer, stronger, and more peaceful communities. These individuals embody the spirit of Peace Portraits, as they work tirelessly to inspire change and empower others.
By circumstance or by divine calling, Tavares Harrington knows he was brought to the work of Community Violence Intervention (CVI) for a reason.
Defining it as simply a “career” could not fully encapsulate the time, energy, and heart he’s put into ensuring that Chicago’s Austin neighborhood—and the city as a whole—provides peace and protection to its residents. As a proud Austin native and Outreach Supervisor at the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago (INVC), Harrington sees his work as a labor of love and makes it his mission to cultivate safer environments.
He moved from Madison Street to North Avenue in 1985 and recalls growing up in a tight-knit community, where everyone looked after one another. There was no going to the next block and acting up, at least not without another parent or elder reprimanding you.
“When I was coming up, we used to have fights and stuff, but you would fight someone today, and be back playing with them tomorrow,” Harrington says.
Kids ran up and down the street until the streetlights came on; Harrington spent his days at the park playing basketball with his friends.
It was a simpler time for him. And for Austin.
But things changed in the ‘90s, when more guns hit the streets, Harrington says. In 1994, tragedy struck when his mother, Patricia Banks, was shot and killed near his grandmother’s home. Harrington, nearly 15 years old at the time, vividly remembers the day, as rival groups had been clashing for hours before things took a violent and irreversible turn.
“I had just talked to [my mom] before she left the house. She said she was going to the store and she’d be right back. She was going to come and watch movies with me,” Harrington said. “I heard the gunshots when she got killed and I saw the car drive by with her laying down in it. We didn’t know it was her.”
Harrington says he tried to work through the pain of losing his mother the best way he could. He prayed and he went to church, but navigating the grief was too difficult, and no one was checking in. Banks’ friends stopped coming by the house. Simply put, “It was bad.”
Years later, in 2012, his 7-year-old niece, Heaven Sutton, was fatally shot by a stray bullet while selling candy and snacks in her front yard. It was a story that rocked the city of Chicago, but a reality Harrington had to face directly. He says her death nearly broke him.
But instead of spiraling, instead of giving into the anger and sadness of losing his mother and niece to gun violence, Harrington says he was driven to help prevent the next shooting from occurring and from families being torn apart. He joined his sister, Ashake Banks, at INVC, hitting the streets of Austin to inform people of the resources available to support them.
“That was my whole mission,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m going to get in here and I’m going to lead by example.’ You would see me out in the street passing out flyers. I don’t care how I look. I’m going to get out there and try to win some people over for this work and save some lives.”
More than passing out flyers and ensuring his neighbors’ safety, Harrington says he was healing through the work of CVI and by helping others. He trained at the Metropolitan Peace Academy (MPA), a multi-disciplinary training facility designed to professionalize and strengthen the field of CVI.
"That was healing to me, through the work, through helping others. It gives me peace. It gives me everything."
“[The MPA] helped me to understand some of the things I was battling that I didn’t know that I was a victim of, which could possibly hinder my growth. I was able to identify the problems,” Harrington says. “That was healing to me, through the work, through helping others. It gives me peace. It gives me everything.”
These days, as an Outreach Supervisor in Austin, he’s tasked with managing more than a dozen street outreach workers who serve the community by de-escalating hostile situations, providing mentorship and case management, and supporting those most at risk of being a victim or perpetrator of gun violence. He also analyzes crime data, canvasses the community, participates in district council meetings, advocates for CVI down in Springfield, and more.
His work isn’t bound by time. “I don’t really stop at six o’clock,” he says.
Harrington is only continuing to elevate. In May 2026, he graduated from College Unbound with a 4.0 GPA. At the time of publishing, he’s finishing up Metropolitan Peace Initiatives’ Management and Supervision Fellowship, which helps support CVI professionals in leading teams and building collaborative networks. His capstone project is a nonprofit initiative called Genesis, which provides a pathway for youth to get involved in sports and trade programs. He hopes that participants can gain discipline, confidence, and leadership skills.
“This would be a preventative step where if we get them before the streets get them, then that’s a win,” Harrington says. “We don’t even have to worry about the future if we grab them before the streets grab them.”
It’s evident that Harrington’s life has come full circle. He’s helping to restore peace in Austin, a place he cares deeply about and calls home. For him, peace is living in harmony with his community.
“Peace means to me no more shooting. I want these kids to be able to be kids, who can run up and down these streets and not worry about getting hit by a stray bullet,” Harrington says.
“People just need grace. They just need time. Just love on them because that's what everybody wants. That's all we have to do, is treat people how we want to be treated.”
The Illinois Peace Project is an initiative supported by partner organizations with a shared vision for reducing gun violence in Illinois.
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