Gun Violence Awareness Event Emphasizes Local Tragedies

This article was published in The Pilot on June 7, 2022.

A small crowd gathered in Southern Pines this past weekend to raise awareness of gun violence as part of the national “Wear Orange” event, which started after a Black 15-year-old girl was fatally shot in 2013, one week after marching in former President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony.

Co-sponsored by the Moore County NAACP and the Moms of Murdered Sons (MOMS), the event Saturday afternoon put in plain view the impact gun violence has had on the community as various speakers got up to share their stories.

Saturday’ event felt especially timely this year, having taken place less than two weeks after a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas left 19 students and two teachers dead. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 34 mass shootings since the Uvalde tragedy on May 24.

Moore County residents have not been untouched by the national gun violence epidemic. A representative from the Moore County Sheriff's Office said nine people had been shot within the county in the past year, and the county received 228 calls for shots fired.

The deadliest mass shooting in modern North Carolina history happened in Moore County. That rampage left eight people dead at a Carthage nursing home in 2009.

Southern Pines in particular has struggled with gun violence. Just last weekend, a shooting took place in West Southern Pines that resulted in the victim being airlifted to receive medical treatment.

A representative from the Southern Pines Police Department said there have been eight shootings in the town in the past year. He also said the police force has confiscated 73 illegal firearms in that time.

Gun violence has historically impacted the Black community, including many residents of Southern Pines and Aberdeen. The mothers and fathers of Black boys and girls spoke openly Saturday of the tragic incidents involving firearms that took the lives of their sons and daughters. Years later, they described vivid experiences of loss and love.

Rosie Daniels, the founder of MOMS, said she started the local chapter of the group in 2013 after her son, Floyd Williams was killed by gun violence. She shared a memory of Floyd, who she said was also good with kids. He would organize Easter Egg hunts and gatherings at their home where neighborhood kids could come and play.

“He would also name the kids, [have] a nickname he would give you and it stuck with you,” Daniels said. “So he has about five people right now that he named them, gave them nicknames, and they're like 15 and 16 now and that nickname stuck with them. So the memory that I share is, he loved children, he loved people, and he loved life. He loved everyone.”

Daniels said his son Floyd had a daughter of his own who was five years old when he died.

Daniels commemorated her son and others with a “memory table” she and the MOMS set up at the event. It included framed photographs of the children they had lost with candles and roses laid by each photo.

Alongside the photos was a trifold display board, which itself included a list that stretched over more than three pages. On it were the 62 names of those who had been killed in the past two decades by gun violence in Moore County.