Press release from the Center for Participatory Change:
Faith leaders and communities will gather for a prayerful processional on All Saints Day to confess and lament the disproportionate violence against black and brown bodies sweeping the nation. Following a procession, with pauses for prayer in significant places along the route, the group will call for racial healing in our churches, neighborhoods, and city, then honor loved ones lost on whose shoulders we now stand. This procession will gather black, brown, and predominantly white communities of faith, while also drawing upon Latinx leader, Miriam Dulce Porras, to lead a ritual naming of the dead, as we mark the thin veil between life and death acknowledged by Day of the Dead, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day.
“As we await the release of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) report on the killing of and witness the outcry in Charlotte following the killing of Keith Lamont Scott and Justin Carr, we acknowledge the wounds are deep,” said the Rev. Dr. Marcia Mount Shoop, Pastor of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church. “We humbly and boldly call on Asheville and Buncombe County to face the hard truths of our racial past, and for leaders in our justice system to honor the sanctity of black and brown bodies and communities through systemic change and reform.”
Recent Department of Justice investigative reports in cities like Ferguson and Baltimore demonstrate systemic racial bias and disparities in traffic stops, arrests, and use of force. Here in North Carolina, three comprehensive studies revealed documented racial bias in jury selection, charging decisions, and sentencing, especially the death penalty. “We use the language of ‘provoking racial justice,’ because we can no longer stand idly by while people are dying on the streets,” lamented Rabbi Justin Goldstein of Congregation Beth Israel. “As people of faith, we are called to be repairers of the breach, restorers of the streets, and so we gather as people of many identities and faiths to collectively cry out that this injustice cannot stand.”
What: Prayerful Procession of Faith Communities Provoking Racial Justice
When: Tuesday, November 1 at 5:30PM, All Saints’ Day
Where: Procession begins at Nazareth First Missionary Baptist (146 Pine St.) and ends on
the courthouse steps
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