A morning breeze cooled a small crowd of mourning mothers and grandmothers on Saturday, holding signs with messages like “Save Our Children” to the passing traffic on Scenic Highway.

Around a dozen women, many of them ministers or family members of gun violence victims, stood in the parking lot of Kutt N’ Korner’s barber shop to share prayers and honor the memory of two young children killed by gunfire this past week.

Cathy Toliver lost a 3-year-old grandson in 2022 when a stray bullet came through his bedroom wall and struck him as he lay in his bed. Since then, she has made it her mission to bring prayer to the street wherever the violence is worst, she said.

“If violence begins to knock on your door, what are you going to say? You’ll be joining our club. This is not a club that you want to be a part of. This is a situation that we are forced in,” Toliver said.

“I know you hear me in the building. I know you hear me in your houses. I know you hear us across the street. I know you hear us in the neighborhood, and we’re letting you know today that we will not back down.”

On the night of March 8, Davian Nicholas, 8, was struck by a stray bullet and killed while playing basketball on a dead-end street with his friends.

Authorities believe his death was the result of a shootout between four men, two in a car and two on foot. All four suspects have been arrested.

Kimani Thomas, 10, was shot later in the week while playing in the parking lot of the Sonic on Government Street. Police believe her death was accidental, when an 8-year-old child picked up a gun inside his parents’ car and shot Thomas.

Both Davian and Kimani’s names rang out from a speaker at Saturday’s rally, and were answered by honks from passing cars and semi-trucks.

Sorrow and mourning, but hope

Down the street from Kutt’N Korners, on Swan Avenue, Erica Rayford had her 8-year-old grandson, Diellon Daniels, killed by gunfire just before Thanksgiving 2024. Four men mistook her daughter’s packed minivan for their drive-by target, police believe, riddling the vehicle with 20 to 30 shots.

“As we are gathered here on Scenic and Swan, Lord God, cover every mother, every father, every grandmother, every aunt, every uncle, every niece, every cousin, every sibling, Lord God,” Rayford preached to the crowd. “God, where they’re grieving now, God, and hurting in that time of sorrow and mourning, let them know that joy comes in the morning.”

Rayford said that in the past year she has learned to rely on other women who have gone through loss similar to hers, many of whom were with her Saturday.

“You’re not alone,” she said. “Someone else has walked the walk. Stay encouraged, even during the darkest times, the hardest times, the loneliest times. Find your place in God, because if you don’t know God, it will be hard. But when you know God, even in your trying and struggling, you can triumph over it.”

‘Time to run the devil off of Swan Street’: Community reflects on shooting death of boy, 8

Louisiana state Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, was also in attendance, and she thanked Toliver, Rayford and other mothers and grandmothers for “standing in the gap” to defend Baton Rouge’s children.

“I loose the spirit of hope in our community. I loose the spirit of love and commitment in our community,” Barrow preached. “I bind up hard-heartedness, Father, I break it up. Young kids are being introduced to so much, and by the time they become a teenager, their heart is almost like a stone.”

She said that while the government can’t fix the program alone, it is the tirelessness of activists like those gathered on Scenic Highway that motivates her in her work at the Capitol.

While Barrow acknowledged the gathering was small, she said their voices carried far and that “one spark can start a raging fire.”

Overall, the mourners’ reiterated that these kinds of killing, with multiple young children being shot within the same week, are becoming more commonplace in Baton Rouge.

Many said they fear that young men take up arms because they never knew a world without before this level of killing. To them, it is still parents’ and grandparents’ jobs to remind these young men that Baton Rouge can return to being a more peaceful world.