Monday’s rally brings a powerful message of peace:

By Tashana Hughes:

On Aug. 21, 2017, Amarillo College held a peace rally on the Washington Street Campus to show support for the victims injured in the Charlottesville riot and to honor the life of Heather Heyer, who was killed during the Virgina protest. Melodie Graves, an AC adviser and member of the college’s diversity committee, spoke during the rally, letting those in Charlottesville know that we are standing with them. Chancelor Barbaree, a music major, sang the national anthem during the rally. “I was very honored to be asked to sing that song. Once I heard the cause for me to sing and that it was going to be a peace rally, I had no hesitation. It was a great cause,” he said.

With everything that we have going on in this world–from killings… to riots… to kidnappings, it’s time we all come together to make things better. That was the purpose of the AC rally–to stand with those victims. During the event, organizers handed out pins that read “peace, love, respect, equality, justice and unity.” I believe those words go together perfectly stating that there should be peace throughout all the land; love, because we should show some form of love to everyone despite how we feel about them; respect, because we all as individuals deserve to be treated with respect as well as respecting others; equality, because even if we do not see eye to eye with others, we are all still equal to each other; justice, because we as adults know right from wrong and know when there is something that we should not be doing. For example, the man who ran his car into those people in Charlottesville knew what he was doing was not right and I believe the victims deserve justice. The final word on the pin was unity, because we need to be united as one in order to get things done in a positive way. There should be no violence or hurting. There should be one voice. Our voice.

So I, as we all should, stand in the gap, praying for unity and the healing of those who were injured in what started out as a peaceful rally and turned into a raging riot that should not have occurred.