A group of Kansas City women clergy called for healing in Ferguson, Mo., during an interfaith service and prayer vigil Tuesday night.
Volunteers with the faith-based Communities Creating Opportunity went to Ferguson last month after the fatal police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown to help register voters and train community leaders.
"The African Methodist Episcopal Church has as a part of its motto that we are a liberating and reconciling church," says Rev. Betty Hanna-Witherspoon, whose church hosted the service. "So we are more involved in justice activities."
CCO organized the event to encourage mothers to take a more active role in community conversations about ending violence.
"Mothers, particularly in the African-American community but in most ethnic minority communities, take on the burden of sharing with their sons and daughters very early on this is how you handle an encounter with the police so you emerge from that encounter alive," says Hanna-Witherspoon.
Hanna-Witherspoon says if people of different races interacted more in times of celebration, such as birthdays and weddings, she thinks violent encounters like what happened in Ferguson would happen less frequently.
