NEWS

Many attending the rally against gun violence wore orange.

Sunday a vigil/rally was held on the Davidson Town Green. The program was simple and powerful, with many in attendance wearing orange. The color has been adopted by gun safety advocates because it’s the color people wear in the woods to avoid being shot by hunters.

The program included volunteers reading the individual names of the victims in Buffalo and Tulsa. Parents and children read the names of the Uvalde victims. There were periods of silence. Other speakers included a mom, a teacher, and a CMS student. As a long-time activist for gun safety, Christy Clark talked about action items as a representative of Moms Demand Action. Several local musicians performed, and the event concluded with a benediction.

Planners of the event shared that anthropologists will tell you that ritual can be understood as a “performance of a conceptual orientation.” Ritual brings thoughts, feelings, and emotions from the chambers of our private, individual selves into the public arena of time and space, of action and movement. This public performance makes thoughts and feelings explicit, in order to process them, for them to mingle with the thoughts and feelings of others, so that communities can adjust to and deal with trauma. That is what organizers hoped to accomplish with this vigil and rally.

See an album of Bill Giduz’s photos at the event.