CINCINNATI, Ohio — Ever since her son was shot and left for dead on the streets of Cincinnati, Rukiye Abdul-Mutakallim has been advocating for peace.

She's even made her home garden a place where her neighbors may heal.

"When they’re feeling bad, they come by here,” she said. "Because that’s what flowers do. Life brings light.”

Abdul-Mutakallim believes in the innate power of pollinators, particularly butterflies and bees. She said they work to heal the world.

"Without them, mankind has no future,” she said.

In her philosophy, though, there's a third "B," the most important one that needs to flourish: babies.

"This was my baby. He was my youngest," Abdul-Mutakallim said, holding up a framed photo of her son.

In 2015, 39-year-old Suliman Abdul-Mutakallim was shot and killed on the streets of Cincinnati.

"They simply walked up behind him, shot him in the back of the head. His head blew off and he fell in the gutter,” she said.

He died the next day at the hospital.

Two of the three men who attacked him, were in their teens.

“That in itself told me I have to look at what is happening in our community," Abdul-Mutakallim said. "Not, ‘Why me,’ not, ‘Why my son,’ but why and how did children even get a gun. Get the inkling to go and harm another person?”

She researched the lives of the young men who killed her son coming to the conclusion that trauma put them on this path to violence. With that knowledge and understanding, Abdul-Mutakallim said she was able to forgive them.

Knowing other stories like theirs were out there, though, she said it wasn't enough. Abdul-Mutakallim wanted to make sure no one else had to suffer like her family did.

“End the pandemic of trauma which will end the pandemic of violence which will end the pandemic of crime,” she said.

That is easier said than done. Abdul-Mutakallim said she recognizes trauma is a cycle that will repeat until someone addresses its roots. She founded the Musketeer Association to do just that, working on projects to address gun violence and promote peace in Cincinnati.

In recent months, she said it's been difficult to ignore one of those roots that has persisted since her childhood.

"I come from the civil rights days," she said. “We wanted a future for our children because we are human. We have rights just like any other human. The same rights and we were not being treated as such and still we’re fighting.”

As a child, Abdul-Mutakallim said she watched her neighbor nearly beaten to death by men in white hoods. She said she grew up to see cousins killed as they advocated for their rights.

Now, she said she can see the same hatred rising again.

“With a racism so bold and blatant in our face," she said. "They hid under the covers and now they think empowered to come out.”

Instead of fighting back though, Abdul-Mutakallim said she wants to channel the leaders she grew up following.

“Those unsung heroes that you don’t know about who took the beat down," she said. "Who had broken bones, who came back again and again and sat at those counters and made no sound.”

That's as she put together a protest for Monday morning, she said silence will be key.

“The sound of the spirit will resign, resound all the way up to the heavens when you speak with your heart and your spirit and you are quiet,” she said.

Abdul-Mutakallim will lead what she calls a small army in a sit-in protest in front of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center incorporating her other symbol of progress, flower pots.

“Protest pots is what we call them,” she said.

Abdul-Mutakallim has gathered 5,000 small flower pots, each decorated with her son's name.

It's a prototype for her future ambition, full-size flower pots throughout Cincinnati, each bearing the name of a life lost to violence, marking the place they were killed. The pots also have a QR code that links to a website so people can learn more about what happened there and the life lost.

The project was set to launch this summer but was delayed due to the pandemic, but in the wake of violence and civil unrest, Abdul-Mutakallim said the pots couldn't wait.

"It awakened something in me,” she said.

Monday morning, she's putting the pots on display along with signs about violence, suicide, racial injustice and domestic violence. She said the display will speak for itself, but it will also serve as a call to action.

The protest will continue in front of the Freedom Center until 5,000 people sign the Musketeer Association.

“Stop the violence. Stop the racism. Stop the fascism. We stand as one. The pandemic of trauma must come to an end. One for all and all for one,” she said.

Abdul-Mutakallim said the petition isn't going to the city or any higher power asking them to change. Instead, it's a call pledge she hopes every person signing takes to heart.

“When you sign it you are saying to yourself I am committed,” she said.

She hopes if that hunger for peace can germinate in enough souls, a garden will soon flourish on the streets of Cincinnati.