The Union University department of social work hosted the 13th annual Remember Me Commemorative Walk on Monday, Oct. 4 at 6 p.m. in the G.M. Savage Memorial Chapel.
The event, sponsored by the Center for Just and Caring Communities, invited families who have suffered the loss of loved ones from homicide and other acts of violence to remember them by participating in a candlelit walk to the Hadley circle cross and a balloon release of love letters.
Nita Mehr, director for Master of Social Work programs and professor of social work, and Theresa Blakley, professor of social work, hosted the service. They recognized several community collaborators and special guests, including Mayor of Jackson Scott Conger, Jackson Chief of Police Julian Wiser, District Attorney General Jody Pickens, All Saints Anglican Church and Lighthouse Church.
Marianne Dunavant, director of victim outreach at Marsy’s Law for Tennessee, addressed the group, sharing her story of violent loss and urging victim advocacy, namely through criminal justice reform and Marsy’s law.
“In that parking lot, I stood, being told that the man who said he would never leave me was forced to break his promise. At 35 years old, I stood there feeling abandoned and going through everything that I had worked so hard not to feel all over again,” Dunavant said. “Imagine the person that you love more than anything in this world being laid down on the ground and shot in the back of the head. Then, ask yourself what you’re going to do with it. If we do nothing, they die for nothing. I refuse to let that happen.”
Mehr and Blakley presented Dunavant and United States Marshal Tyreece Miller with the Union University Champion of Victims’ Rights Award for 2021.
After a performance by the department of music’s Voices of Proclamation, Mark Bolyard, university professor of biology, announced the adoption of a scarlet oak to the the Union University arboretum in remembrance of the honored victims.
Attendees were given the opportunity to write love letters to their loved ones. Accompanied by the Liberty High School Air Force JROTC, they walked the route to the cross and released their commemorative balloons.
“Being able to verbalize—whether it’s written or voicing it to someone else—those feelings of what we would love to say to our loved ones again is so powerful. It’s cathartic, actually, to be able to do that,” Mehr said. “It’s a start. It’s a start to healing for many people.”
Since Mehr and Blakley started the commemorative walk in 2007, several families have joined it as yearly participants. Norma and Cliff Ellington have made the memory quilts displayed at each event for the past decade.
“They do it in honor of their son, who was murdered in 2009. This is how they show their resilience and strength,” Mehr said. “Everybody contributes in their own way—whether they’re a participant, whether they’re a witness, or whether they’re a survivor—just by giving their support, not just verbally, but if we have an event, they show up for it.”
Tammy Patton, associate professor of social work, has attended the event as a witness and community member for the past six years. She relayed the experience of seeing the son of a victim who she had known when he was a young child in church.
“I just remember as a little boy, him screaming in the kids wing, and losing control, and screaming and crying because that was the only way he knew how to express himself,” Patton said. “I wasn’t sure if he would remember me because they didn’t do it last year, and it was pretty limited the year before that, and he wasn’t there. So I saw him three years later. When he talked to me, he still remembered me, so it’s really sweet.”
