RIT documentary captures grief after death of Rochester teenager
How a Rochester community mourns the death of Divine Calloway
Divine Calloway was shot and killed on August 9, 2023 at the age of 18. His coaches, teammates and family spent the last year trying to navigate their lives without “Stunna.”
Jess Kszos
Without basketball, Divine Calloway and Jess Kszos’ paths would probably never have crossed.
In fact, they have never met. At least not in this life.
Calloway was an 18-year-old black student, a standout athlete and recent graduate of Wilson Magnet High School when he was shot and killed in August, becoming a young victim of Rochester’s gun violence epidemic.
Kzsos was then a rising senior at Rochester Institute of Technology studying photojournalism. She spent her weekends and evenings photographing Rochester’s basketball community, from impromptu games at Cobbs Hill to actual games in city school gyms. She considered this community a family.
When friends in those basketball circles began posting tributes to Calloway — No. 3 at Wilson — on Facebook shortly after his death, Kzsos couldn’t help but join them in mourning someone she never knew.
“I wanted to know who we lost,” she said in a recent interview.
Who was Divine Calloway?
Kszos got to know Divine Calloway last year through those who loved him most, spending hours with his family at intimate Sunday dinners, following his former basketball team’s disappointing season, crushing defeat and Calloway’s jersey on the bench – a constant reminder of his absence.
In the process, she made a 13-minute documentary that, according to Kszos, became a story about a community dealing with its loss and “somehow, someday moving on.”
The Democrat and Chronicle is publishing Kszos’ documentary to highlight the stories of people affected by gun violence in Rochester.
“There is this everyday trauma that is just ignored, and we don’t know who we lost or whose lives were affected,” Kszos said. “What is going on in our community?”
Youngest graduate killed in summer violence in Rochester
Wilson basketball coaches Victor Norflee and PV Norflee, a father-son duo, described Calloway as the “ideal” student-athlete.
Calloway was a model student who took time off from practice to study, they said. As basketball captain, he led practices without a coach and closely observed opponents’ tendencies. Calloway also played football.
He worked at McDonald’s on Lake Avenue and was planning to attend vocational school at the time of his death.
Calloway had just graduated from high school when he was killed by another teenager during a fight in Marketview Heights. PV Norflee said Calloway could have done anything he set his mind to and wanted to make his father proud.
“Divine was just an all-around good boy. It’s tragic that this happened to him. He didn’t deserve it. He has a big heart and comes from a great family. We all wish we could experience this night again,” Norflee said.
He first met Calloway in 2016 as his sixth-grade teacher at Austin Steward Elementary School No. 46 and then met him again in Wilson.
Participating in the documentary was a “no-brainer,” Norflee said. Kszos approached PV Norflee at Calloway’s funeral in August. Months later, Calloway’s family, friends and teammates crowded into an auditorium at RIT to see the film for the first time.
Norflee said he was impressed by the togetherness and emotion the audience felt after the premiere. Everyone seemed to have a personal connection with Calloway.
“It’s been almost a year now and it still feels so fresh,” Norflee said. “We’re still hurting as a community, and the city of Rochester is still mourning his death.”
“Ballin for Stunna”
Victor Norflee, or Coach Flee, liked how the documentary showed that Calloway was anything but a “thug” — rather, a good young man from a good family. The Wilson basketball team’s involvement in the documentary was important to their healing process, Coach Flee said.
“Especially in the black community with its young men, we do not express our opinions sufficiently,” he said.
Wilson selects three captains each season: Coach Flee chooses one, his assistants choose another, and the players vote on a third. When Calloway was a senior, he was Coach Flee’s personal candidate for captain.
No one will wear Calloway’s number 3 again, the coach said.
During the 2023-24 season, Calloway’s No. 3 jersey was placed on an empty spot on the bench every game as Wilson dedicated the season to “Stunna.”
The winter was rough. Wilson finished 5-16 and struggled through long losing streaks.
The losses stung all the more because they wanted to win for Calloway, coach Flee said. Emotions ran high as the Wildcats won their final game of the regular season against Honeoye Falls-Lima, 67-62. Michael Mitchell made a three-pointer with 54 seconds left to give them the lead. A Wilson player held a “prom posal” after the game, with a bouquet of flowers and friends holding “PROM?” signs.
However, there was a more important lesson throughout the season.
“Is it more important for you to get over this loss than not being able to go home to the people you love? Those are some of the things we’re trying to put into perspective,” coach Flee said.
Living with grief
Tata Lightle now gets annoyed every time she reads the comments section under a news article about the recent Rochester murder. There is so much blame, she said, most of it directed at the victim: He deserves it. It’s a kind of karma.
She remembers Calloway, her cousin, who was more like a brother to her. “I don’t want people to just see him as someone who was just killed,” Lightle said.
She said the documentary was a way to counter accusations made by strangers against murder victims in Rochester.
“You can see now that he was a black scholar,” she said. “He worked. He was a very good friend. He was an athlete. He just checked all the boxes. He was respectful, kind, determined, he had goals. He wasn’t just someone living on the streets. He didn’t deserve anything. It wasn’t something where karma came back on him. It was an unfortunate situation.”
Lightle said she hopes the documentary also provides more insight into the grief caused by gun violence. She’s most concerned about Calloway’s teammates – the trauma they endured at such a young age and how it might affect their future. The documentary helped the family stay connected to Calloway’s former team. They showed up at several games and helped each other through their grief.
Her family also stuck together and now hosts Sunday dinners at her grandparents’ house, where there are many memories of Calloway.
Lightle’s own son, Pharoah, is just 5 years old and considers Calloway his big brother.
“We were like that,” he said in a recent interview, giving two fingers a firm squeeze. A life-size cutout of Calloway stands in the corner of their apartment. Lightle talks about him regularly.
“It’s easy to forget,” she said. “You feel guilty about just moving on with your life after someone dies. But he was so much bigger than what happened to him. And I’m definitely going to make sure everyone knows that.”
— Kayla Canne covers community justice and safety efforts for the Democrat and Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @kaylacanne and @bykaylacanne on Instagram. Contact us at [email protected].
— Marquel Slaughter is a journalist with the Democrat and Chronicle who specializes in high school sports. He has been a reporter for 15 years. Follow him at @MarquelSports and X or on Instagram. Contact him at [email protected].
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