From Baltimore Cease Fire 365 - On the surface, this is a picture of the #BaltimoreCeasefire365 and #BaltimorePeaceChallenge organizers. What you can't see is that this is a picture of resilience, perseverance, spiritual oneness, and ancient love. Photo credit: Erricka Bridgeford, Baltimore Cease Fire.
Toting Ceasefire signs, men and women made their way through snowy streets in West Baltimore on Saturday, heading to pray on yet another corner where a shooting victim had died. Passing drivers honked their support, residents called out “thank you” and Amira Boyd emerged from her house in Gilmor Homes asking if someone could spare an extra sign. The prayer walk to commemorate the 11 men and one woman killed in a two-mile stretch in the past year, one of several events marking the city’s first Ceasefire weekend of the year, came as a welcome sign to Boyd and others. The 27-year-old mother of three said her children’s father was shot and killed in the city in 2017. Now the Sandtown-Winchester resident, who lives near the spot where Freddie Gray was arrested in 2015, won’t let her 7-year-old twins and toddler out in the courtyard to play…
For Erricka Bridgeford, a Ceasefire founder, the movement is all about changing people’s attitudes and behaviors toward one another, if only for a few days at a time. Bridgeford launched Ceasefire in August 2017, urging a 72-hour period without any killings. On Saturday, she joined the prayer walk organized by the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland that began at the Church of St. Katherine of Alexandria on Division Street.
Read the full story from The Baltimore Sun and watch the video interview with the Rev. Canon Scott Slater
The Rev. Canon Scott Slater and participants in the prayer walk
for the Baltimore Cease Fire Weekend February 2, 2019.