BUFFALO, N.Y. — A number of services took place on Sunday, as the community remembered the mass shooting where 10 people died and three others were injured a year ago on May 14.
At True Bethel Baptist Church, The Rev. Al Sharpton of National Action Network called for continued action against the rise of violent hate, including the racially motivated extremism seen in Buffalo one year ago.
"As much as we are going to hear today about healing, you can't heal until you deal with the wound," Sharpton said. "We cannot put a Band-Aid over an open scar. Healing needs and necessitates surgery, and the reason they don't like elected officials is because they're dealing with the surgery instead of the Band-Aid."
Services at St Martin De Porres Church on Northampton and Saint Joseph Cathedral on Franklin reflected on the tragedy of one year ago.
No final blessing was held at Saint Joseph. Instead, parishioners were invited to pray for peace in a holy hour. It's part of the Diocese's "Journeys and Insights" to heal from the aftermath of 5/14.
"What we did learn and experience was that there is an abundance of goodness, deep care, and concern that exists in our community," Bishop Michael Fisher said. "We experienced a tremendous outpouring of shared grief, and a coming together of friends and strangers alike, to provide comfort to loved ones left behind, and to assert that this is not who we are."
That strength in the community was felt Sunday at St. Brian Clothier's, which hosted a special event called "Jefferson Strong: Our Side of the Story." It was a chance for writers to share their perspective on pain one year later.
Dr. Silvia Lloyd shared poetry Sunday from her book, "The Buffalo 10 Massacre: Spoken Word Poetry for Healing and Understanding."
"'Why does this keep happening to us?' we ask as each victim dies," she read from her book. "This just kept leaking in my ears every time I would revisit it. Like, how does this happen to us? So then I wrote it down. I said, 'OK, you've got to write this down.' It kept coming back to me."
The son of one victim, Mark Talley, just released his new book Sunday. It's called "5/14: The Day the Devil Came to Buffalo."