March is just a first step

Organizers realize that more must be done to sustain effort to reduce violent crime.

A 50-person march won't stop the youth violence in Rock Hill by itself. But it might be one more step in the right direction.

About 50 people gathered under overcast skies Saturday to march from the Emmet Scott Community Center on Crawford Road to Rock Hill City Hall. The march highlighted the frustration of residents with recent shootings that have claimed the lives of three teenagers.

The march was first proposed during a packed meeting in the community room of the Emmett Scott Center on Oct. 15. The crowd included parents, pastors, neighborhood association leaders, police officers, politicians and other concerned community members.

Sherman Porterfield, president of the Black Male Summit Committee, was one of the speakers at that meeting. He also was one of the organizers of Saturday's march.

“If we don't take a stand now, then we can just say goodbye to the kids of tomorrow,” he said Saturday.

Organizers know it will take more than marching to solve this problem. But they hope this is a first step in building community awareness and trust between neighborhoods and police.

Enthusiasm for confronting the problem of violent crime was high during the days immediately following the shootings. We hope efforts such as the community meeting and Saturday's march will continue, and that neighborhoods can sustain interest in making their streets safer.

The march from the community center to City Hall took 20 minutes. A dedicated effort to diminish street crime in the neighborhoods near the route of that march will take much longer than that.