As communities across the country held their own local versions of the March for Our Lives, Chattanooga area residents gathered Saturday at Miller Park to start the peaceful protest calling for an end to gun violence.
The event was held as the area continues to come to grips with two consecutive weekend mass shooting incidents that killed three and injured about 20 people in the city.
"Marching only works if it's followed by action," 17-year-old activist Sidda "Sid" Gross said as she addressed over 100 people who showed up to march.
Gross detailed her own experience with mass shootings, which began for her at the age of 10.
"Don't walk out of here feeling accomplished for what you've done," Gross said. "Walk out of here feeling the anger my generation does, as we constantly feel we are expendable. We are not expendable."
In the May 28 shooting in downtown Chattanooga, all six of the people injured were between the ages of 13 and 15.
People held signs and chanted "No more silence, end gun violence" as they walked the route from Miller Park, going four blocks north on Market Street, turning east on Fifth Avenue, traveling south on Georgia Street and then returning to Miller Park.
Tennessee state Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, D-Chattanooga, urged community members to work together to find the common ground needed to end gun violence.
"The Bible said 'Jesus loves little children,' not guns," Hakeem said. "We have to be in this together, the time is now for change."
He said elected officials must work to understand, while adding that the public should hold their elected officials accountable for creating laws that keep communities safe.
"If we don't, you have to make us understand," he said. "You need to stress to elected officials, like me, that you are (the ones) that put us there, you can vote us out."
However, not everyone present Saturday agreed that gun law reform is the way to make communities safer.
John Dietzen, a U.S. Navy veteran, spoke to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, saying that while he was growing up, guns were a regular part of his upbringing, saying he'd go hunting with his teenage friends all the time.
"Our semi-automatic rifles are weapons right there. It didn't even cross our mind to use them for nefarious purposes," Dietzen said. "So fast forward 40 something years. What has changed? It's kind of a rhetorical question. It's the moral decay and rot of America."
Dietzen said that the problem may lie deeper within households and not in laws, saying that lack of family structure, discipline and access to violence online and television may be the underlying issue that has spiked violence.
"This depravity playing out on our streets every day, every week. I don't ... know what the solution is," Dietzen said. "I can tell you that preventing me from owning my semi-automatic rifles is not a solution for law-abiding citizens."
Instead of reforming gun laws, Dietzen said mental health might be the bigger problem.
"It's more like mental health, and I mean, look at all the things that are causing the moral problems, you got drug abuse, you got sexual perversion," Dietzen said. "... you've got all these issues ... you have these kids are growing up without fathers. I don't know how you can fix that. I'm just telling you that taking guns away from law-abiding citizens is not the solution."
City Councilwoman Demetrus Coonrod urged communities of color to step up and have these conversations.
"My message is to the Black and brown community," Coonrod said. "What are we going to do? You're not going to put that heavy burden on me, because it's going to take all of us."
Coonrod went on to say that while Chattanooga's recent shootings are predominantly affecting Black communities, their leaders were noticeably absent from the discussions afterward. She called for pastors, the NAACP and other notable leaders to stand up and speak out.
"The Black and brown people ain't here," Coonrod said. "No one is speaking up for the Black people."
On June 3, three people died and 14 were injured in an early-morning mass shooting incident on McCallie Avenue in front of Mary's Bar & Grill. All three of the people killed were Black. In videos shared on different social media platforms, a large group of Black people could be seen standing in the street blocking traffic before the shots were fired.
John Allen Brooks, a candidate for Hamilton County district attorney general running on the Democrat ballot, said he was there to see what people had to say.
"The State of Tennessee needs to make it the law that a child should be trained well enough to get a license," Brooks said. "An 18-year-old, if they didn't have a license, we wouldn't let him run (drive), but we'll let him go out and buy a high-powered weapon, now tell me which one is more dangerous?"
Contact La Shawn Pagán at lpagan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476. Follow her on Twitter @LaShawnPagan.