Since 2011, Stop the Violence Prayer Chain, a youth-focused violence prevention organization, has led a peaceful march during Black History Month. The group plans to do it again Saturday in Wilmington.
The march will begin at 2 p.m. on 30th Market St. and end on Rodney Square, said Margaret Guy, who founded the nonprofit to curb Wilmington’s rampant gun violence. Group leaders “often” come together in prayer at the sites of shootings in the city, she explained.
“A lot of us are gun violence and police brutality survivors, and we’re just trying to show love, march with peace and show the community that there are other ways to handle situations besides pulling out a gun,” said Guy, adding that the nonprofit mentors Wilmington’s at-risk youth.
This weekend will be the nonprofit’s first peace march since canceling last year’s events because of COVID-19 restrictions. Guy said the nonprofit has stood alongside distraught mothers and fathers who have lost family members to shootings or domestic violence for over a decade.
MORE:Why a challenge to Delaware law prohibiting gun ownership for most under 21 was dismissed
Speakers at the event will include some of those families, she said.
“Their voices need to be heard. You can’t shut people down when they need to speak. … It’s not normal for our children to not be able to go outside and play in their communities because of shootings,” Guy said. “We are not going to stand for this anymore.”
The march comes after a Feb. 4 triple shooting left a 29-year-old woman dead and two injured in Wilmington’s Price Run neighborhood. The woman was the third person to have been killed in the city within that week.
Saturday’s event, dubbed the “Black History Month Walk or Ride,” includes Mom’s Demand Action, Wilmington Peacekeepers, Group Violence Intervention and Safe United Neighborhoods, among other organizations, Guy said.
To learn more about Stop the Violence Prayer Chain, visit prayerchainfoundation.org.
Contact local reporter Cameron Goodnight at cgoodnight@delawareonline.com, or by calling or texting 302-324-2208. Follow him on Twitter at @CamGoodnight.