…The March to Save the Children, a gathering of people from different races, ages, and walks of life, began at Cecil B. Moore Park at 20th Street and Lehigh Avenue and ended in a rally outside Faheem’s school, T.M. Peirce Elementary, at 23d and Cambria Streets.
LaTasha K. Blackston, 26, of North Philadelphia, pushed 14-month-old daughter Treasure’s stroller through the thick crowd.
“I’m here to give my daughter hope,” Blackston said.
Blackston grew up in North Philadelphia and dreamed of raising her own children there. Now she wants to leave. She has seen rough times before, and she’s seeing them again.
“I was going to a funeral every week from July to October 1996,” she said. “Then it got better. Then it got worse again.”
The march was supposed to have been silent.
But as marchers walked the deadly streets of North Philadelphia, many found that they could no longer hold their tongues.
“Don’t be silent! Stop the violence! Save our children!” they yelled.
Read the rest in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The people turning out to ?Stop the violence,? is a nice gesture and I hope that it helps. The truth is that these parades of hope are hopeless. They fail to understand and act upon the reasons that caused these things to happen in the first place.
When that child was killed outside the school while something like 90 bullets were fired none of the countless people came forward to report on what they saw. No witness as of yet has come forth.
Drugs, violence, and fear on the streets in this city are a way of life for the people who dwell in Philadelphia, with no visual end in sight.
I have to agree with Neo on this. Parades is not what is needed. The end to the drugs is the first step. How to do that? Instead of spending money on protecting oil or invading countries for oil, we could spend that money on stopping drugs.