‘We need everybody.’ Lexington march to remember victims of gun violence marks 10 years
Ten years ago Saturday, 21-year-old Antonio Franklin was shot near the swings at Duncan Park. He died the next day at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital.
An innocent bystander to the gunfire that erupted around him, Franklin’s death changed the trajectory of his mother Anita Franklin’s life and motivated her to work for enduring change in her community, her cousin Nadine Brown said.
“Pain will either motivate you — make you move — or pain can bury you,” Brown said. “I think she chose the better part.”
On Saturday, the community came together for the Peace Walk at Duncan Park to remember Antonio and his mother and to continue the fight against gun violence that she began.
Before the march through the East End neighborhood, there was a community resource fair and a program featuring musical performances.
Gerald “Geo” Gibson performed his song “Hold On.” He said Anita Franklin helped him record the music video for the song the day before she died.
“None of this work can get done with just one person, one agency,” said Gibson, who runs an organization for youth called OMAC, or Operation Making a Change. “We need everybody.”
Family members and friends shared remembrances of those lost to gun violence.
“These streets are not your friends,” said Francine Weathers, whose 18-year-old son, Damar Weathers, died in a shooting at Castlewood Park last April. “Listen to your parents. They love you.”
Shawnda Snow said she was there for her son, Christopher Snow, who was 32 years old when he was found shot on East Fourth Street in 2018. She said her son was “a gentle giant, vivacious, full of life.”
The homicide remains unsolved, and Snow said in an interview that she hangs fliers every year on his birthday, in hopes that someone will come forward with information.
She said attending Saturday’s Peace Walk for the first time felt “liberating.”
“It brings a little bit of joy to my soul,” Snow said.
She was asking everyone who passed by to sign the banner put out by We Are Survivors, the group Anita Franklin formed to support people affected by gun violence. The signatures were considered a commitment to work toward ending the violence.
“There’s always a time to step out in faith,” Snow said.
Before her death in 2020, Anita Franklin worked in community outreach with the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, a position now held by her son Ricardo Franklin, Antonio’s brother.
He said the anniversary marked Saturday was an emotional day, but he considered it “a blessing” to be able to have the walk.
“I was in high school, and it seems like 10 years has kind of flown by,” Ricardo Franklin said. “I don’t want anyone to ever have to experience anything like that.”
“My mom always said, ‘Let’s get better and do it together,’” he said.
Alejandro Arreola, the organ transplant recipient who received Antonio Franklin’s heart, was there from Huntington, W.Va.
Ricardo Franklin said Arreola has become like a brother to him.
“My heart’s been more heavy this week than in previous years,” said Sheriff Kathy Witt, whose office helps organize the Peace Walk.
She recalled in an interview that she was a little nervous before meeting Anita Franklin for the first time, after Franklin invited her to come to the event she was planning at Duncan Park soon after the shooting.
“I thought, ‘What am I going to say to this mom I’ve never met,’” Witt said.
She needn’t have worried.
“She met me and brought me into the park,” Witt said. “She gave everything she had to end gun violence.”
And Witt said she intends for the Peace Walks to continue until gun violence is ended.
“We’re not going to go anywhere until we see change,” Ricardo Franklin said.
