'This Is a Community That Is Strong': Buffalo Mayor Urges Unity in Wake of Shooting

Buffalo Mayor Byron W Brown appealed for strength and unity while addressing a congregation in Buffalo, New York, on May 15, the day after 10 people were killed in a shooting at a local supermarket.

Brown told a congregation at the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church: “It is OK to grieve. It is OK to let out the pain, the anger, the anguish, that we are feeling, but in a constructive way. And after we grieve we have to come back together as a community.”

Brown continued: “This gunman thought he had targeted a community that is weak. But this is a community that is strong.”

Police said 13 people were shot at the store, 10 of whom died. The suspect was named as 18-year-old Payton Gendron. The shooting was being investigated as a racially motivated hate crime, police said. Credit: Mayor Byron W Brown via Storyful

Video transcript

BYRON BROWN: The attorney general talked about what Black people have faced in America since we came to America. But we know that God has made a way out of no way for people of color in this country.

[APPLAUSE]

We have to use that strength, the strength of the ancestors, the strength that the ancestors had who came here as enslaved people, who had their language robbed from them, who had their families separated, who had everything that they knew snatched from them.

We are not living in those times now. We are living in times with people of all races, of all faiths, and of all backgrounds can sit in a sanctuary together. As the governor and lieutenant governor and Senator Kennedy said, we attended several church services earlier today at True Bethel and Friendship Baptist church that lifted us up, that brought us together.

It was amazing and I don't know if they coordinated Pastor Cook. But at True Bethel was Bishop Pritchett and Friendship with the pastor of Friendship, the message-- yes, Edward Jackson-- the messages were very much the same. And the messages were, it is OK to grieve. It is OK to let out the pain, the anger, the anguish that we are feeling, but in a constructive way.

And after we grieve, we have to come back together as a community to build better, to build stronger, and to make a more connected unified Buffalo than ever before.

This gunman thought that he had targeted a community that is weak. But this is a community that is going.

[APPLAUSE]

We won't let this act of hate by a lone gunman define this great city. This is a city of hope. This is a city of promise. This is a city of opportunity. And with all of us working together in spite of this tragedy, this is a city on the rise. Thank you and God bless.

[APPLAUSE]