A somber graduation for Alabama students mourning classmates killed at Sweet 16

DADEVILLE, Ala. — Raven Tolbert, a Dadeville native, returned to her hometown after graduating college to fulfill her dream of setting up a dance studio, Mahogany Masterpiece, devoted to kids and  young people.

On April 15, the red-brick building on Broadnax Street across from the courthouse and police station, right in the middle of town, turned into a scene of carnage. Its vinyl sign is now gone, the storefront adorned with a makeshift memorial of flowers. That Saturday night, during a Sweet 16 party there, six gunmen fired a total of 89 shots. They shattered the small community in a matter of seconds. 

The shooters took the lives of Dadeville High students Shaunkivia Smith, 17, and Philstavious “Phil” Dowdell, 18; Marsiah Emmanuel Collins, 19, of nearby Opelika; and Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23, who graduated from Dadeville High in 2018. Residents of this sleepy town of 3,100 people, 90 miles southeast from Birmingham, have turned to one another for support as they mourn their loved ones and pray for the recovery of at least 32 others injured in the mayhem.