As Baltimore continued to reel after a May marred by 42 homicides, the most in a single month in 25 years, citizens and community leaders at two events Saturday took starkly different approaches toward a common goal: restoring and keeping the peace.
In Cherry Hill, nearly 200 people donned homemade white-and-red T-shirts and took to the streets for a prayer walk, stopping at a half-dozen locations to sing hymns, offer prayers and ask for blessings on a neighborhood long troubled by violent crime.
And at a church in Mount Vernon, leaders from the Peoples Power Assembly and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference took a sociopolitical tack, organizing a forum at which speakers demanded an end to what they called a long history of police brutality in Baltimore.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake only made it to the Cherry Hill event, but she might have been referring to both when she praised the way that the community had united to make a statement and a difference.
"I love it," she said, surveying the free festival that took place at the end of the march. "They've made so much progress here because all segments of the community have come together. I hope we can continue to see that."
Cherry Hill was already celebrating a streak that flies in the face of the violence that has spiked in the city in the aftermath of the death in April of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray, who was fatally injured in police custody.
The neighborhood has not experienced a homicide in more than 400 days, a streak for which Rawlings-Blake thanked Safe Streets, a program that aims to suppress violence through mediation and mentoring, at a public event this week.
The men, women and children on the walk agreed, but they seemed just as sure that prayer is a powerful weapon for peace.
"Prayer always makes a difference," said Minister Nitesha Allen-McQuay, who grew up in the neighborhood and now works at Triumph Community Church in Seton Hall. "This is such a healing event."
Escorted by a Baltimore City Police patrol car, the group made its way along Cherry Hill Avenue and Bethune and Spelman roads, pausing at sites of community importance or where violent crimes have occurred.
In front of the local elementary school, Friendship Academy, Allen-McQuay prayed for the children, staff and parents.
"This has been 406 days where our children could play with no crossfire, where people could live in peace and harmony," she said. "Hallelujahs" resounded.
Moments later, the group stopped at the corner of Spelman Road and Denham Circle, where Cherry Hill native Michael Battle, who has organized the annual walk since its inception four years ago, said a friend had been murdered a few years ago.
This time Lystra Ali — a Cherry Hill native whose son, Laquan Campbell, was shot and killed elsewhere in Baltimore in 2010 — did the honors.
"God, you said where two or three gather in your name, you'll be there," she cried, citing the Gospel of Matthew. "We're holding you to your word. We ask you for continued peace."
In the basement of New Unity Church on West Franklin Street, about 75 people came together to hear a series of speakers vent frustrations with police brutality in Baltimore and beyond.
They recalled the lives of young men who died after run-ins with police: Gray, Tyrone West, Anthony Anderson, Michael Brown, Eric Garner. And they pledged to continue to publicize the need to reform police and society to put an end to police brutality.
"The answers are not going to come from City Hall," the Rev. Cortly "C.D." Witherspoon told the crowd. "The answers are not going to come from the State House. The answers are not going to come from the White House. The solution starts with you. The solution starts with me."
The event drew a mix of white and black Baltimore residents, as well as activists from New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles and North Carolina, many of them affiliated with the Peoples Power Assembly, which sponsored the program.
Several speakers applauded Baltimore residents who took part in the "uprising" — they said it was not a riot — following the death of Gray April 19. If not for the uprising, they said, people would not know about Baltimore's problem with police brutality.
"It wasn't until the uprising took place that City Hall took notice," Witherspoon said.
After weeks of largely peaceful protests, rioting broke out the day of Gray's funeral, with arsons, looting and clashes with police.
Larry Holmes, an activist from New York, praised those who decided to "rise up" in Baltimore. "Broken windows are better than broken necks," he said.
He urged activists not to become complacent over the summer. "You've got to stay active. ... This is the summer to strengthen this black-lives-matter movement," he said.
Elsewhere in Baltimore, mourners gathered for the funeral of Jennifer Jeffrey-Browne, 31, and her 7-year-old son, Kester "Tony" Browne, Wylie Funeral Home officials said. The mother and son were found shot to death last month in their Southwest Baltimore home.
The victims were among the toll of those killed in Baltimore in May. No arrests have been made in their killing.
Baltimore Sun reporter Jessica Anderson contributed to this article.