INDIANAPOLIS — City leaders used prayer on Wednesday trying to unite and preach togetherness before another round of protests downtown.
City leaders, including Mayor Joe Hogsett himself, using prayer to unite the people of Indianapolis.
"We pray that through action, not words, we may lift up those voices that have indeed been marginalized," Hogsett said.
Community members, clergymen and city-county councilors all took the podium one by one and prayed for the city.
"I don't think there's any more room actually for denial that we have disparities, that we've got bigotry, that we've got racism," City-County Council President Vop Osili said.
Osili reflected on the past week, having participated in some of the protests himself.
"It was the relative ease by which a man killed another man even while being filmed and what does that say about us as humans that we can tolerate that?" Osili said. "That that is okay? And it's acknowledging that we have allowed it in places where we didn't have cameras."
Osili said he's taking that acknowledgement to his fellow council members, requiring race and inequity be in every conversation and in decision-making.
"The continued discussion on what are we doing to address this explosion that has been simmering all throughout this country," Osili said. "There has always got to be in every budget meeting how is this impacting inequities in our city? As we begin to discuss it more and put it on the table then I think more people begin to understand that we are all responsible for the levels of inequities that we've got and how to we address those and rebalance those."
