On Mother’s Day, victims’ families walk to end violence

Many of the hundreds of people gathered in a Field’s Corner park yesterday morning marching against violence were aware of what happened just 17 hours earlier, one mile up the street.  

“That mother’s not getting out of bed today,” said Emma Harrison, a Boston resident participating in yesterday’s Mother’s Day Walk for Peace.

The walk kicked off from a park along Dorchester Avenue. Further up the street, a teen was gunned down Saturday afternoon at the Savin Hill T stop.

Harrison sympathized with that mother and knew her pain.

It was Harrison’s 12th time walking the 3.6-mile peace route. Her grandson, Cerrone Hemingway, was 15 years old when he was killed in 1998.

“People got it all wrong,” she said. “They think we walk for people that have died. We’re doing it for the kids that are here. This violence has got to stop.”

The Rev. Ron Odom, whose son Steven was 13 years old when he was killed, addressed the crowd just before the walk began.

He said he was happy to see men also joining mothers in the walk.

“It’s taken me three years to come to grips with this pain of losing a child. We all have the same pain,” he said. “Today we serve violence an eviction notice.”

Mayor Thomas Menino was one of the handful of politicians who joined the walk and also addressed the crowd.

“Enough is enough,” Menino said. “We’re going to take the streets back.”

Walk spreads beyond Boston

Christine Jackson came to Boston from Washington, D.C., for yesterday’s peace walk. The mother of an 18-year-old son who lost his life to gun violence is working with the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, the organizers of the Walk for Peace, to start a similar event in Washington.

“We knew this would be life-changing for both of us, and healing,” said Jackson, who founded Torch of Hope. “This has laid the ground-work in Washington.”