Peace March to Urge Safer Neighborhoods

In 1990, Lorna Hawkins had a dream after living through a nightmare. Two years earlier, haunted by the drive-by killing of her son Joe, 21, she formed Drive-by Agony, an organization that aids families and friends of victims of violent crime. It helped her cope, but it wasn’t enough, so she conceived of the idea of a peace march.

“I had a dream about Martin Luther King and how he marched for the rights of people, and how our rights as families of crime victims were being violated,” Hawkins said. So the Drive-by Agony peace march was created.

On Saturday, the seventh annual march will take place downtown, in which 3,000 people are expected to join in the walk from Olvera Street to the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration.

In addition to the march, which will begin at 1 p.m., the crowd will be treated to live entertainment, including a noon performance by comedian Paul Rodriguez. Three health vans will provide blood pressure and cholesterol screening.

The campaign is expanding. There will also be marches in Mississippi, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alabama, Missouri and Texas.

“The whole idea is to help the kids, and make this a peaceful world or at least a peaceful California,” said Hawkins, who was devastated by tragedy again when her other son Gerald, 22, was fatally shot during a 1992 carjacking.

“We’re hoping it will be a domino effect and spread though he whole country, “ she said.