Photo of Mayor of the Village of Hempstead taken by Elaine Rezende.
The nation is weeping over the Sandy Hook massacre that left 20 children dead in Newtown Connecticut on Friday; a cry for more gun control.
“It’s important that we have gun control because anyone can buy a gun right now,” said Mayor of the Village of Hempstead, Wayne Hall Senior and a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, at a candle light vigil held at Hofstra University on Dec. 17. 2012. “There’s only a certain amount of mayors and some of them don’t believe in gun control. We need the voters to stand up and say enough is enough.”
The Xi Psi chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. along with Hofstra’s Black Student Union and the Nu Tau chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc. brought the Hofstra community together for a moment of silence, a prayer and an exchange of thoughts for the people who lost their lives at Sandy Hook.
“This was something that struck us as very important to speak up about,” said Amanda Medina, Vice President of the Nu Tau chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho.
Jessica Downing-Brown, President of the Sorority exclaimed, “This is not enough. We should step up more.”
After the vigil was over, Vice President of the Xi Psi chapter of Alpha phi Alpha, Deion Toppin said, “It upsets me when it takes something like this to bring people together. Gun violence has always been a problem.”
Mayor Wayne Hall Senior said, “We’ve seen our share of gun violence in Hempstead. In all the minority communities we have gun violence.” He added, “It can happen anywhere as you can see on Friday.
After the vigil, the division of student affairs at Hofstra University also held a prayer and an additional vigil for the Hofstra student body.
The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, was said to have a history of mental health illnesses. On Friday, he killed his mother, children and adults, and then committed suicide.
On Sunday evening, President Obama spoke at the Sandy Hook vigil, “calling for an end to the epidemic of gun violence in America,” according to an article in the Huffington Post.
The nation is stricken by this tragedy.
-Claudia Balthazar
Published in Black Ink, the official newsletter for the Hofstra Association of Black Journalists.
Claudia Balthazar 