HARRISBURG — Hundreds of locals joined efforts across the nation in showing solidarity in the quest for civil rights in lieu of recent national police shootings.
After church sermons at several local services, many locals clad in black went to the Manna Café for soul food and unite peacefully in solidarity. The National Black Solidarity Sunday efforts followed Black Lives Matter Die-In as national efforts coordinated on local level to protest the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin.
The dinner at the Manna Café was to help peacefully bring the community together and show unity in a non-violent way, organizers said.
Stanley Lawson, president of the Greater Harrisburg NAACP chapter, said the day was to recognize there is a problem that has to be solved with equity and justice.
"I couldn't be in Washington, D.C., where the march was, but I can be here today and wear black to show church showing solidarity," Lawson said.
Reginald A. Guy Jr, a co-founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. Development Institute, said it was "foolhardy" to think something like Ferguson couldn't happen in Harrisburg without some reform in how police interact with minorities. He said the day's events were to show solidarity and help show that people won't allow such deaths to happen as easily.
Homer C. Floyd, chairman of the labor and industry committee for the Harrisburg NAACP, said there must be reform with policing to prevent the loss of black lives. He added that police exist to protect and serve not to deal out life ending punishments for people like Brown, Garner and Rice.
"It's not right for them to lose their lives for the incidents as they're described," Floyd said.
Lawson emphasized that he was concerned with what was happening Harrisburg with violent crime and murders, and is planning meetings with area NAACP chapters in early in 2015 to address the issues locally. Lawson said he worked in the local school system for 20 years and he's saddened to see what's happening with some of the youth he used to work with.
"I'm really concerned by this ... they're not strange names. I know a lot of these kids," Lawson said. "We've got to work on our own issues. Charity begins at home and spreads abroad."