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Religious leaders, NAACP officials rue violence
Friday, March 03, 2000 By Steve Levin, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
There are times for talking and there are times for action. Now is the time for both, local church leaders and civil rights activists said in the aftermath of Wednesday's fatal shootings in Wilkinsburg.
The leaders said the shootings of five men, three of whom died, was the result of racism, hate, mistrust and poor communication coming on the heels of publicized local incidents involving black men killed by white police. The Wilkinsburg dead and injured were white; the accused gunman, Ronald Taylor, is black.
"Unfortunately, we have had too much experience in our community in dealing with these situations," said Esther L. Bush, president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Pittsburgh. "Also unfortunately, there have been quite a few incidents that have been race-related.
"We really need to talk to each other. We really need to understand each other. We need listening on both sides and the appropriate actions ... modeled after appropriate behavior."
Ministers in Wilkinsburg said the incident would be at the center of their Sunday sermons.
Violence has become "the way to respond when you're angry, frustrated or disappointed," said Thelma C. Mitchell, pastor at Wilkinsburg Baptist Church, a multiracial congregation of 120.
The Rev. Jerome Burns of the Church of the Holy Cross, a Homewood congregation of 305 members, said his theme would be forgiveness.
"As a Christian, there is no room in one's heart for hatred. Hatred doesn't bring anyone back," he said.
If race proves to be the motive for the three killings, said Tim Stevens, president of the Pittsburgh branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,, the group views the killings as violating the state's ethnic intimidation act and federal civil rights act.
It is our prayer, added Stevens, that we "see no duplication or imitation of his act."
For Toni Moses, president of the Wilkinsburg branch of the NAACP, the violence struck in her own back yard.
"We're sympathetic to the loss of lives and deeply saddened for the families," she said.
This is a wake-up call, said Kara Whitfield, vice president of the Wilkinsburg NAACP and a board member of the state conference of NAACPs. It focuses attention on racial profiling and the racial tensions that have simmered after the acquittal of the four New York City police officers who were charged in the shooting death of African immigrant Amadou Diallo and the acquittal of former Pittsburgh police Officer Jeffrey Cooperstein in the death of Deron Grimmitt.
"I don't know what drove this man to the point where he couldn't take it anymore," she said, but the frustrations of accused shooter Ronald Taylor reveal the "seething of racial anger" in her community that needs to be addressed.
Richard P. Burton Sr. of Allentown, a past NAACP state conference president, yesterday asked national NAACP board Chairman Julian Bond and President Kweisi Mfume to come to the Pittsburgh area for a series of meetings about race relations, violence and drugs in communities.
The NAACP will hold a justice forum, "Mobilizing for Power," from 3 to 5 p.m. tomorrow at East Liberty's Mount Ararat Baptist Church.
Staff writer Ervin Dyer contributed to this report.
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