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.
