Many community members join together in prayer during the community prayer service for healing, on Monday, July 11, 2016, at First Baptist Church of Huntington.
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Organizers of two events in Cabell County Monday night sought to bring people together amid national friction that has divided people throughout the country.
A prayer vigil at First Baptist Church of Huntington and an AARP picnic at Barboursville Park were two different events on paper, but they had the same goal – to create dialogue among communities and encourage people to support and understand one another.
Tensions have been especially high in the United States since last week’s killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minnesota by white officers, and an attack on police by a black sniper in Dallas that killed five officers.
It was those tensions that led the Rev. Donte Jackson, pastor at First Baptist, to seek some solution by organizing the prayer vigil…
