Organizers Also Urge End to Holiday Gunfire : Vigil Honors 54 Youths Killed in Detroit

“I’m here because somebody close to me was taken away,” the slender young man told the crowd of 70 in the conference room. “Until 1982, I never knew anybody who was killed. And now, all of a sudden, it seems like everybody I grew up with and went to school with is falling by the wayside--dead from selling drugs or getting shot or something. They say you die when you get old.

“In Detroit . . . that’s not true.”

With that, 23-year-old Greg Taylor opened a candlelight vigil Saturday to remember the scores of teen-agers killed here this year.

Serves Two Purposes

The vigil, labeled “Silent Night” and held at the Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit, was planned both to encourage Detroiters to cease a long-standing ritual of firing guns at midnight on New Year’s Eve and to honor the children slain here.

As part of the program, sponsored by an anti-violence organization called Save Our Sons And Daughters (SOSAD), one candle was lit for each child 16 years old or younger slain in the city this year.

On this chilly New Year’s Eve day, 54 candles flickered brightly inside Central United Methodist.

“Fifty-four kids killed this year,” said Tonya Jennings, 17, a student at Detroit’s Dominican High School who helped Taylor and other group members coordinate the vigil. “We have to find a way to stop this violence. Drugs have been filtered into the black community. . . . Our system has left a gap open and is allowing guns to seep into our communities.”

Toll Nearly 200

In 1987, 46 children 16 years old or younger were killed in Detroit. In the last four years, nearly 200 youngsters under age 17 have been killed. Many died in drug-related slayings, others in arguments in school, one on a Detroit city bus--almost all by guns.

“It’s a war zone,” said Errol Henderson, a doctoral candidate from the University of Michigan who addressed the gathering. “What would you ask for if you had to walk through a war zone? A gun.”

Clementine Barfield, who founded SOSAD in 1986 after her 16-year-old son was shot to death, said the rifle and shotgun salvos that many Detroit residents fire off on New Year’s Day should not be viewed as merry-making.

Sees ‘Death Threat’

“We need to stop celebrating shooting and recognize it as a death threat,” said Barfield, who has earned national attention for her fight to stem the tide of bloodshed that often inundates Detroit streets. “I want our young people and our old people to realize this.”

Barfield said the “Silent Night” project was one of the first attempts by the youth arm of SOSAD to organize a major event.

“It’s a good beginning,” she said. “These are kids from all over the city. They are fed up. I was talking to one girl who has lost so many friends that one of the first things she does in the morning is (to see if any of) her friends died the previous night. That’s a shame; these kids want it to end.

“We are going to get this thing turned around,” Barfield added. “People have lost enough friends and children. We have had enough.”