NEW YORK: Bronx rally against gun violence draws hundreds

"It is true that 'it takes a village'," said Gloria Cruz, founder and organizer of the annual 'Walk Against Gun Violence.' "In order to change your community, you have to be active in it."

For the third consecutive year, Cruz gathered family members, the community, fellow advocates and elected officials in the Bronx, at the playground where the life her 10-year-old niece Naiesha Pearson was abruptly ended by a bullet at a Labor Day picnic in 2005.

Cruz, a member of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in the Bronx, said the senseless event compelled her to do something.

"I was angered that nothing was done and Naiesha's death was nothing more than a media moment,"” she explained.

Further driving her, she said, is the fact that "our youth are becoming a dying breed."

"We are losing them to the judicial system and St. Raymond's Cemetery, which is where all the kids around here are usually buried," she said.

Cruz, who started the Bronx chapters of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV), and Million Mom March said her mission is strengthened by the support of Bishop Mark Sisk of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, whose statement of support was read at the gathering.

"This rally does two things," said Edie Smith, president of the New York Chapter of the Million Mom March and board member of NYAGV. "It keeps the memory of Naiesha Pearson alive and it tries to alert people to the danger of having illegal guns in the community."

Although statistics state that 30,000 people are killed every year by gun violence and eight young people are gunned down everyday in the U.S., Jackie Hilly, executive director of NYAGV said "it's still almost numbing" and you can't "really get your head around it."

"To put it in perspective, 30,000 is the number of people who run in the New York City Marathon," she explained. "So every year in this country, it's as if the New York City Marathon is gunned down."

At the rally, Hilly commended the work of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose letter of support she read.

Million Mom March and NYAGV are calling on Congress and the State Senate to pass the Microstamping and Gun Dealer bills.

"The first thing that people 18 years and older need to do is register to vote," she said. "They need to find out who is representing them and what they stand for, and then start calling them to let them know that they have an interest in their community and want to make sure that it is safe and illegal guns are stopped."

'Antidote to violence is education'
Noting that 40 percent of the inmates at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, in Ossining, New York cannot read or write, and that 75 percent do not have a high school diploma, the Rev. Canon Petero Sabune, protestant chaplain at Sing Sing, said that the "antidote to violence is education."

"The reality of all of this is that we either get them on this end and prevent them from committing a crime, or get them on the other end in prison," he stated.

Sabune, the keynote speaker at the rally, said several members of his family "have died due to some form of violence."

While serving as dean of St. Philip's Cathedral in Newark, New Jersey, Sabune said he gained further insight into violence which allowed him to organize families and local faith communities to respond when an 8-year-old boy named Terrell James was killed in a drive-by shooting.

"Today's gathering is important because I believe every diocese, bishop, and parish across the country needs to declare peace on this issue," he said. "The Episcopal Church has had a clear unequivocal message against gun violence."

Other speakers at the rally included Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson and New York State Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, Jr.

The Rev. Martha Overall, rector of St. Ann's, said her church has tried to offer leadership in doing the work "of the Prince of Peace."

"In this neighborhood, it's really step-by-step, day-by-day, person-by-person, and I suppose gun-by-gun," she said.

-- Daphne Mack is an Episcopal Life Media correspondent and editor of the Global Good website. She is based in New York City.