For about 100 people gathered downtown Wednesday, the sound of silence was a sign of healing.

        A crowd gathered in front of the YWCA headquarters near Ninth and Walnut streets at noon to observe three minutes of silence. It was a way to show grief and solidarity since racial tension gripped Cincinnati after the April 7 shooting death of an unarmed black man by a police officer.

        The gathering was sponsored by the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati. Charlene Ventura, executive director, said more than 100 organizations in the Tristate, including Ashland Inc., Procter & Gamble Co. and Corporex Cos., pledged support, offering to have employees participate from their offices. Corporex put up two 15-foot ribbons on the Baldwin building in Cincinnati and RiverCenter in Covington.

Observing three minutes of silence Wednesday are Miriam West (left) of Paddock Hills, Carolyn McCoy of Hyde Park and Herbert Smitherman of North Avondale. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        The Cincinnati Bengals observed the event by stopping practice for three minutes.

        Ms. Ventura said the event was planned for Wednesday because it was the traditional observance of Memorial Day. Ms. Ventura said the holiday has always been an interracial activity; it was started when a group of black children in Charleston, S.C., went out after the Civil War and decorated the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers.

        “It is fitting that this day be selected as a day of grieving and mourning,” Ms. Ventura said.

        The crowd, a diverse group — young and old, black and white — wore small black and white ribbons as a symbol of community healing and racial harmony. The silence was broken only by the chimes of church bells and the World Peace Bell in Newport.

        Then the rich voice of Christopher Smitherman, a financial manager with Lincoln Financial, delivered a medley of hopeful songs, including “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”

        Cars slowed on normally busy Walnut Street to make room for onlookers who trickled off the sidewalk.

The hands of Charlene Ventura (left) and Barbara Smitherman are joined during a noon gathering outside the YMCA downtown. | ZOOM |

        People on their way back from lunch stood in front of the public library across the street and listened to speakers from the Racial Justice Committee of the YWCA.

        Cathy Madewell, an Over-the-Rhine resident who went to the event during her lunch break, said she was glad to see people coming together peacefully.

        “It is important that we have hope,” the 44-year-old woman said. “It is what is going to bring solutions.”

        It is a solution Theresa Koontz would like to see reached for her and her children's sake. Ms. Koontz, who has three young children and also lives in Over-the-Rhine, stressed the importance of the community coming together.

        “It starts with us first,” Ms. Koontz said. The 21-year-old said things had been “hectic” in her neighborhood, which was one of the heaviest hit during the April protests, since the shooting.

The silence was followed by prayer and songs.
       

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