Four weeks after the Tops Markets massacre, a crowd of hundreds will march past the store on Saturday in support of gun control.
And at the very same time, thousands are expected to gather in the nation's capital for the very same reason.
This year's "March for Our Lives" – inspired by last month's deadly mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas – follows a similar event of the same name four years ago, after a teenage shooter armed with an assault rifle killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
And while people from Buffalo participated in that event, the dual marches this year will resonate much more deeply for the local participants. Ten people were killed in the May 14 attack at Tops, and a survivor of that attack is expected to speak at the Buffalo event. Meantime, families of the victims and others from the Buffalo area will travel to Washington for the national march.
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Local activists originally planned two marches for Buffalo, but those events have been consolidated into one event on the city's East Side.
Ekaete Bailey, one of the organizers of the event, said the march has four goals: honoring the victims of the massacre and pressing lawmakers to ban assault weapons, institute a universal background checks for gun buyers and repeal a federal law that shields gun manufacturers from lawsuits.
"We want to make sure people know why we're doing it," Bailey said.
The event will start at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Glenwood Avenue. Marchers will stop at the Tops memorial site for a moment of silence, and then conclude with a speaking program at the corner of Jefferson and Riley Street.
In addition to Bailey, speakers will include:
- Mark Tally, son of Geraldine Tally, one of the victims of the Tops massacre.
- Fragrance Harris Stanfield, a Tops employee and survivor of the attack.
- Deidra EmEl, executive director of the Western New York Peace Center.
- Victoria Ross, co-chair of the Peace Center.
- Cat Moores, a student at Nazareth College and an organizer of the event.
- Jillian Hanesworth, poet laureate of Buffalo.
Lifesavers, a youth group that's part of Buffalo’s Stop the Violence Coalition, will also take part in the program. And Ros Jomo and Friends, African drummers and dancers, will perform during a "celebration of life" at the end of the program.
Hours before the Buffalo event begins, a bus will depart for Washington with local residents traveling to the national event, said Rev. Denise O. Walden-Glenn, executive servant leader of VOICE Buffalo, a local nonprofit that promotes social justice. VOICE Buffalo organized the bus event, and Walden-Glenn will be one of the many speakers at the Washington event, as will Garnell Whitfield Jr., the former Buffalo fire commissioner who lost his mother, Ruth Whitfield, in the Tops attack.
In addition to those traveling by bus, others will be flying from Buffalo to Washington for the event, Walden-Glenn said. In total, about 60 people from Buffalo will be attending, she added.
"What happened to us on the 14th was tragic and horrific, but we recognize that gun violence is a huge problem not just in our city, but across the nation," Walden-Glenn said. "And if we start to identify some solutions around gun violence and racism as a whole, then we improve things not just for us, but for everyone. So that's kind of the tone in which we're going down there."
Other speakers at the national march include David Hogg, the former high school student who survived the Parkland massacre; Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers; and Rep. Cori Bush, a Missouri Democrat.
“This Saturday we are marching again because change can no longer wait. We need the Senate to take action now so that we can put an end to the wave of senseless gun violence taking place in our country,” said Trevon Bosley, March For Our Lives board member.
Because of incorrect information provided to the News, an earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Buffalo's poet laureate. The story has been corrected.
