By Omari Salisbury

The walk was not too far, only 1.4 miles, but yesterday's Unity Walk from Jimi Hendrix Park to Garfield High School was not about the distance between two points but rather the first steps on a journey for peace, reconciliation, and community accountability in Seattle’s Central District neighborhood which has found itself in the throes of gun violence. The latest victim being Amarr Murphy-Paine a student at Garfield High School who was shot and killed last week on campus.

The Unity Walk was organized by Dr. James E. Sears III who was Amarr Murphy-Paine’s pastor at Grace Temple as well as one of his football coaches and who also led last week's candlelight vigil at Garfield High School. According to Sears there is no better time than the present to address divisive issues in the Central District and in doing so clear a path of cohesiveness on the road to tackling the persistent issue of gun violence wreaking havoc across Seattle’s legacy Black neighborhood. 

“I wanted to organize the Unity Walk today because I have seen so much division within our community and in order for us to accurately push the message of cohesiveness and togetherness, we must first exemplify it and especially us community leaders. In order for our community to feel safe, it's going to take our community working with one another.” said Sears 

“We want this to be a perpetual movement that will push us to be more proactive in our communities rather than reactive. So we can help prevent tragedies in our communities.” added Sears

Sears said that his goal was to bring as many different people as possible from all walks of life who value life and unity in the Central District together. 

His call to community was heard as groups like Community Passageways, Central District Public Safety Accountability, Lavender Rights Project, as well as clergy, elected officials like King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, representatives from the City of Seattle, as well as concerned citizens young and old gathered at Jimi Hendrix Park in prayer and reflection before heading north on 23rd Avenue towards Garfield High School. 

Once reaching Garfield High School, on the very steps where a memorial to Murphy-Paine remains, Seals addressed the crowd, some in tears standing in the very spot where Murphy-Paine lay helpless dying after trying to intervene in a fight between two students when he was shot several times. 

Deaunte Damper, a co-founder of Central District Public Safety Accountability, a public safety advocacy group which was formed after a shooting incident last year on 23rd and Jackson that sent bullets flying into A 4 Apple Learning Center while classes were in session was present to support the Murphy-Paine family and to hear Sears message.

“Pastor Sears delivered a powerful call to action encouraging us all to continue to uplift and support the Murphy-Paine family and to work together as empowered community members to  take accountability and responsibility for the safety in the CD, his speech gave me a sense of hope that we can mobile together to make this a safe summer in the Central District and beyond” said Damper 

As the Unity Walk ended, Sears expressed gratitude for community members who came together in the purpose of peace.

“The Unity walk was an incredible experience. I was very grateful and humbled, to see the support from all the community come out and show their love for the family and even to the family. I am very excited for the next unity walk that's going to happen, because I believe this is going to build the momentum for the movement of change that we're looking to see. it's my hope that this will continue to be something that we are proactively doing and that we will continue to hold everyone accountable and know that it's going to literally take a village for us to save our community” said Sears

For more information on upcoming Unity Walks email Dr. Sears: kingjames415@gmail.com