(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rita Branch-Davis speaks during a vigil for the victims of the Atlanta shooting, at Salt Lake Community College on Friday, March 19, 2021.
Utahns gathered at the Salt Lake Community College’s South City Campus on Friday afternoon to participate in a vigil for the people, including six women of Asian descent, who died in this week’s mass shooting in Atlanta.
The vigil was also intended as a show of solidarity with Asian American, Pacific Islander and Pasifika people across the country.
Attendees wrote the names of the victims in chalk and said their names in a call and response, where one person said a name and everyone else repeated it back.
SLCC Chief Diversity Officer Dr. Lea Lani Kinikini read a poem, and the crowd sang “We Shall Overcome.”
The crowd held a moment of silence in honor of the victims before departing.
Elected officials and members of Utah’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Community released a statement in the wake of the shooting condemning anti-Asian violence.
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