SAN DIEGO — After a weekend of gun violence nationwide, the San Diego community is speaking out, saying enough is enough. On Monday, dozens gathered in Balboa Park for a vigil and rally against white supremacy and gun violence.
"Today is a day of reckoning," declared one demonstrator. "Today, I say no more!"
San Diegans of all ages, races and backgrounds came together at the fountain in front of the Fleet Science Center, raising their voices and raising their signs.
"We are one people, one human race, and we should stand together against this violence," said Bishop Cornelius Bowser.
They passionately spoke out against the mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday, in which ten people were killed and three injured.
Eleven of those 13 victims were African-American, and authorities are investigating this as a racially motivated hate crime, allegedly carried out by an 18-year-old white man.
"We have to stand up for Black lives, because until Black lives matter, no life can matter," said one participant, who identified herself as Maya, during the Balboa Park vigil.
"It's like, where does this hate come from?," asked Anita Wucinic-Turner of the Racial Justice Coalition.
"This is 2022. and to see ten black people shot and killed in a supermarket, it was like he was hunting them," she added, "And he's only 18 years old. How do you have that much hate in your soul?"
"As a Black man living here in San Diego, I've certainly felt it in terms of neo-Nazi presence here, and I've felt like I'm in danger," said Darwin Fishman, also of the Racial Justice Coalition.
Demonstrators also called on elected officials to pass stricter gun control laws on a nationwide level.
"We will hold you accountable," said one. "We can no longer allow people to show up in our name, get elected in our name and then come through for us!"
Organizer Wendy Wheatcroft said she believes that this and the large numbers of other demonstrations being held throughout the country will make a difference.
"There's more of us than there are of them," she told CBS 8. "That is what they're threatened by, the white supremacists. Our country is diverse and that's what makes it beautiful: and when we are together, nothing can stop us."
President Biden is expected to travel to Buffalo, New York on Tuesday to grieve with the families of the victims in that violent mass shooting.
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