Walking the mile between Baton Rouge's City Hall and the state Capitol Saturday morning, more than 100 people hoped send a message of love and togetherness in a city where tensions along racial and political lines have been a persistent problem.

They wore T-shirts bearing the image of two clasped hands — one black, one white — inside a red droplet of blood. It was a reference to the "One Blood" campaign of Metro Council members Tara Wicker and Trae Welch, who organized the march. Wicker is black and Welch is white.

"No matter what the color of our skin is on the outside, on the inside, we're all the same," Wicker said.

That was the same point she wanted to make at a July council meeting when she and Welch pricked their fingers with a needle and smeared their blood side-by-side on a piece of paper, then displayed it to the room. Black Democrats on the council had criticized Wicker for casting the deciding vote to let Buddy Amoroso's widow, Denise, fill his seat after the councilman, a white Republican, died in a bicycle accident.

"At that moment, you saw Baton Rouge divide in a way that we were having people way on this side and individuals on that side, and nobody was really standing up being loud in the middle," Wicker said, recounting the incident Saturday on the steps in front of City Hall. "Today we want the voices of those of us that are standing the middle to say, this is who Baton Rouge really is. We're bigger and better than the color of our skin — look at our hearts."

Welch, who was traveling and missed the event, briefly talked to the participants through Wicker's cellphone.

"It's this type of unity that's going to bring us back together and show that we really have never been that far apart to begin with," Welch said.

Saturday's crowd included local leaders — other Metro Council members, state legislators, law enforcement officials and pastors. Most of their speeches to the marchers before and after their journey through downtown took a religious theme.

"(God) wanted us to be an example to the world of what love really looks like and how love transcends the color of one's skin," said Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome. "I'm convinced until we demonstrate that ... we won't get to where God desires us to be."

Omar Jahwar, founder of the Urban Specialists nonviolence advocacy group, described the march as a "bold, strong move" on the part of its organizers. His Dallas-based group is preparing to open an office in Baton Rouge.

Like others, he spoke of a need to leave disagreements in the past.

"There are some people who are really good at talking about the problem, but they're very, very weak at giving us a solution," Jahwar said.

He added: "Some people would love for you to be trapped in what was and not see what is to come. There's a new future that's coming, and it will not be driven by race, by the politics of division. There's a new future that's coming that's going to be built on what we can do together."

But first, people must first confront their own views on racial issues, said Eric Johnson, a pastor with Transforming Culture Ministries.

"Some of us are still dealing with the things inside of us secretly," he said. "That's what we have to approach. The hardest person you have to approach about racism is yourself. It's not the other race; it's yourself."

Denise Amoroso, along with her children and grandchildren, participated in the march. Her voice caught as she recalled how her husband's campaign signs were printed with an image of a bridge — a representation, she said, of his desire to serve people of all stripes.

"He was able somehow to lovingly bridge people together, whether he agreed with you or not," she said. "Instead of building fences, we need to start building bridges."