by Dennis Dalman
A “Wear Orange” rally to raise awareness about gun violence took place in St. Joseph June 5.
Just before noon, 35 participants, many of them wearing orange clothing, gathered on the grassy lot on the south side of the Catholic Church Rectory building. There were songs, prayers, poetry and impassioned testimony from participants about the horror, pain and heartbreak caused by gun-wielding killers.
Throughout St. Joseph, large orange ribbons could be seen on fences, windows and store fronts. The color orange is symbolic of gun safety, as in the blaze-orange color worn by hunters.
On June 4, National Gun Awareness Day, many Wear Orange members walked the streets of St. Joseph, stopping to thank businesses for supporting the gun-safety movement and engaging others in conversation.
The Wear Orange movement began after Hadiya Pendleton, 15, was shot and killed on a Chicago playground just one week after marching in President Barak Obama’s second inaugural parade. To raise awareness about gun violence and as a tribute to Pendleton, her friends and loved ones started wearing orange. Since then, every June there are Wear Orange observances nationwide.
The June 6 rally in St. Joseph was organized by an Avon resident, Cindy Abercrombie, who is a chapter leader in the St. Cloud area for an organization called “Moms Demand Action” comprised of people pressuring legislators to take action against the rapidly increasing incidents of gun violence. Since the mass shooting May 24 at a school in Uvalde, Texas, about 100 people in central Minnesota have joined Moms Demand Action.
“We’ve had a lot of good conversations around town,” Abercrombie told the St. Joseph Newsleader. “There’s a lot of positive movement on this issue.”
In that mass killing, an 18-year-old male entered a classroom at that school and shot and killed 19 students (most of them 10 years old) and two teachers. The gunman used a military-style assault weapon. A similar horrific mass shooting happened about 10 years ago when a lone male armed with military-style assault weapons shot to death 20 grade-school students and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken the day after the killings in Uvalde, nearly two of three Americans support moderate to strong regulations to gun ownership, including 53 percent of Republicans.
The Wear Orange rally June 6 in St. Joseph began with a community prayer:
“Healing and Holy God, we gather today in common grief for the epidemic of gun violence. Be with all those who suffer from the lasting trauma that incidents of gun violence leave in their wake. Grant us strength and courage to live in hope of a better day, our minds fixed on the doing of your will so that we, having been delivered from fear, may live in peace. Amen.”
The rally was emceed by Molly Weyrens of St. Cloud, a member of the Moms Demand Action group. Weyrens brought with her large colored photos of the happy, smiling Uvalde students, who –of course –when they had their photos taken had no idea they would be dead so soon in their young lives. Rally participants each held one of the photos in a sad silence.
Singer Zach Staver, a college student, sang a song he wrote about gun violence.
“In this world full of grief, I can’t find no peace, so I’m tossing and turning in my sleep.”
Speaker Leah Beack, choked back tears, recalling how a St. Joseph boy, Jacob Wetterling, 11, was abducted, molested and shot to death in 1989. Beack said she graduated with Jacob’s sister, Amy, which brought the full tragedy of that crime closer to home. Beack said she worries about her Republican friends because they “have had their party taken away from them.”
Several speakers said it’s time that political leaders of both parties start to pass preventive measures against gun violence.
“Who is to blame?” asked a speaker. “A better question is what can be done?”
Andrea Robinson of Cold Spring, wiping away tears, spoke about how her 18-year-old foster son, Bobby, was robbed and shot to death in his own Waite Park apartment on Dec. 9, 2017. In an interview with the Newsleader the day after the rally, Robinson said she is totally committed to issues of justice and ending violence. She and her husband, Phil, who is Black, were the targets of a Cold Spring man who lived just two blocks from them. The man, she said, stalked family members, shot at their house with an air gun and on July 24, 2021, put a rock on the accelerator of a vehicle and sent it crashing into the front of the Robinsons’ home. The man is still in jail and is expected to have a court hearing soon. The Robinsons have three children at home and four adult children.
Another rally participant was music teacher and poet Juliana Howard of St. Joseph, who played a hand drum and led the group in song.
At the close of the rally, a Litany prayer was read by all the participants:
“Five dead in a home in Duluth, Minnesota
Give to the departed eternal rest.
Let perpetual light shine upon them.”
That refrain was repeated after the following lines:
“Twenty-two dead in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Two hundred fifty-six dead in mass shootings during the first five months of 2022.
For all those who have died in any incident of gun violence.”
The last four supplications were these:
For those who have lost loved ones to gun violence.
Grant them peace. Hear us, Lord.
For those first responders who care for victims of gun violence.
Protect and strengthen them. Hear us, Lord.
For those of us who can work to end gun violence.
Give us courage to act boldly. Hear us, Lord.
For more about Wear Orange and Moms Demand Action, google their websites.
Zach Staver sings a song he wrote about an unsettled world in which he “tosses and turns in his sleep.” He was one of the participants in the “Wear Orange” rally in St. Joseph June 5. At left is Jeff Velline, the husband of Cindy Abercrombie, who organized the event against gun violence.
“Wear Orange” participants walk in a circle of unity during an event June 5 next to the St. Joseph Catholic Church.
