INDIANAPOLIS — While people gathered on the steps of Monument Circle early Wednesday night, a prayer vigil was getting underway across the street.
"I think there's been a transformation of hearts," Mary Slenski said.
Slenski, senior pastor of Christ Church Cathedral, said it's inspiring to see people from different backgrounds come together letting everyone know that black lives matter.
"As a white person, we can keep pulling the logs out of eyes and seeing the injustice that is in our society and then find a way to make things right," Slenski said.
"We need a space to be able to say as a church that we are with people in need that we hear their cries, that we hear their pain and that we are there with them," Karla Moran Jay said.
Jay, a faith leader at Iglesia Amigos De Indianapolis, said supporting the black community is the right thing to do. She said she knows minority communities must stick together.
"I just saw a lot of solidarity from the African-American community when we had the policy of children being detained at the border with their families," Jay said. "It wasn't their issue, it wasn't their pain but they still said, 'It's our pain.'"
Jay said she encourages her community to not sit back while these protests are happening.
"Your fight is our fight and our fight is also everyone's fight," Jay said.
As protesters left the circle to march through the streets of downtown Indianapolis, Jay and Slenski began their prayer vigil, praying for peace and an end to the suffering minority communities face.
Honoring the life of George Floyd by observing a moment of silence lasting for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time Floyd spent under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer before dying.
