PHOTOSTREAM: Greater Cleveland Congregations March for Justice

Tue 5/26

Greater Community Congregations, the four-year-old community organizing group that brings faith communities together to work on issues of social justice, staged a march in downtown Cleveland to advocate for changes in the criminal justice system to make it fairer, more responsive and less racially biased.

The group announced some time ago that they would stage such a march 72 hours after the verdict in the case of Officer Michael Brelo, who unloaded multiple shots into a car containing unarmed victims. That verdict — not guilty — came down Saturday, and GCC followed through. assembling some 600 people, black and white — members of Baptist, AME, UCC,Episcopal, Presbyterian and Unitarian/Universalist churches, multiple synagogues large and small, the Islamic Society of Greater Cleveland and even a sprinkling of Catholics.

Led by clergy wearing their professional attire, the group walked to the Justice Center and then to City Hall. At each place, the crowd was addressed by clergy members who spoke of the need for reforms in the justice system that made the whole community feel everyone was treated fairly and equally. At City Hall, Mayor Jackson’s representative Blaine Griffin accepted GCC’s letter on the mayor’s behalf.

The group then marched back to its starting point  the Holiday Inn Express on East 6th and Euclid — in a jubilant mood, singing songs like “Down by the Riverside” and “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More.”

View the PHOTOSTREAM here.

GCCPhoto

Cleveland, OH 44114

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