Activists Rally Across Chicago To Pray For Peaceful Summer
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Thousands of Chicago area residents took to the streets Saturday in an effort to promote a peaceful summer.
Dozens were expected to march for peace in the South Shore neighborhood Saturday afternoon, just one of several demonstrations planned across the city.
Earlier in the day, a march and prayer were held in honor of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee, who was killed execution-style last November. Authorities have said Tyshawn was targeted because of his father's gang ties, in retaliation for a shooting that killed the brother of one of the three men charged in Tyshawn's murder.
Saturday afternoon's march in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood was not your typical rally for peace. It was about prayer, and people from different communities coming together to a place they've never been.
"We're praying with the youth and for the youth," said Dr. Donovan Price, who organized the march in Tyshawn's honor.
Price was one of the first people on the scene the night Tyshawn was killed.
"The path that we chose for the march is the path that Tyshawn Lee took on his last day," he said.
Those who joined in the march prayed in front of Tyshawn's school, at the park where he loved to play basketball, and the alley where he was slain.
The spot where Tyshawn was killed seemed so distant from Susan Brown's home in Naperville, but she said it felt closer Saturday.
"I looked around, and I saw these homes in this neighborhood that wouldn't look too much different than a Naperville neighborhood; and, yet, a child was shot in that very spot," she said. "We're here, because we want to make a difference; and I don't know how I can make a difference, but I can start by praying."