Two East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council members are taking a message of racial unity to the streets on Saturday with a march from City Hall to the steps of the State Capitol in downtown Baton Rouge.Ėũ
The march, which kicks off at 8 a.m., is part of Councilmen Tara Wicker and Trae Welch's "One Blood" campaign, an effort to reduce racial tensions in the city.Ėũ
"This is an opportunity for those who believe we are all in this together," Wicker said. "The march is symbolic of that."Ėũ
Earlier this month, the council members led a public discussion on race relations that was hosted by the city's fledgling Community Police Ambassador program.ĖũĖũ
After two hours of dialogue â sometimes contentious and other times lighthearted â Baton Rouge residents agreed on one major point: Race is an…
That two-hour meeting was attended by a mix of black and white community leaders and police officials who agreed race is an issue within their communities that can no longer be swept under the rug.Ėũ
The "One Blood" campaign was launched after recent turmoil at the Metro Council over raceĖũ created heated public controversy
It happened when Wicker, a black Democrat, cast the deciding vote that allowed the widow of Buddy Amoroso to fill his vacant seat after Amoroso, a white Republican, died in a bicycle accident this summer.Ėũ
The other black Democrats on the council likened Wicker to Judas for breaking party and racial lines. They had wanted Wicker to side with them in their effort to weaken the council's white Republican majority by blocking Denise Amoroso's appointment.Ėũ
Wicker and Welch, one of the white Republicans on the council, announced the campaign during a subsequent council meeting, using a piece of paper with drops of her blood and Welch's on it to drive the point home that everyone is the same on the inside.ĖũĖũ
A caustic East Baton Rouge Metro Council debate over how to fill Buddy Amorosoâs council seat tumbled so far off course that Councilwoman Tara…
Mayor Sharon Weston Broome, who says she will attend the march, believes the campaign's message of racial unity is important, but feels it's more important to acknowledge the race and cultural differences within the community and have conversations that steer people toward accepting those differences and learning how to respect and love one another despite of them.Ėũ
"For me, that's the bigger issue," Broome said. "If you take a poll, most people in Baton Rouge would say they're Christians."
Broome added: "One of the fundamental principles of Christian faith is to love one another regardless of skin color. If God wanted us all to have the same color, we'd be the same color."ĖũĖũ
Both Wicker and Welch said they've garnered a good amount of interest in the march since announcing it less than two weeks ago.Ėũ
The march will include several speeches from invited guests, one of them being Omar Jahwar, founder of Urban Specialists, a Dallas-based advocacy group seeking nonviolence in urban communities. The group previously announced plans to open a Baton Rouge office.Ėũ
Wicker said officials with both the Baton Rouge Police Department and East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office have also reached out with interest in Saturday's march.Ėũ
Much of local law enforcement's interest in the "One Blood" has been attempts to heal the lingering racial division that rose in the community in the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling and subsequent ambush on law enforcement in summer 2016.
"This is a hard conversation to have a lot of the time, but the more times you have the conversation, the more time you have an opportunity to get some else's perspective," Welch said. "We tend to make up stories about someone else to make the narrative about them be what we want to believe."Ėũ
There will be "One Blood" bracelets and T-shirts issued to those in attendance. Anyone interested is asked to register ahead of the march at Ėũ