INDIANAPOLIS — If you were on the canal downtown on Friday morning, you may have seen dozens of folks wearing orange T-shirts.
They were wearing that color for a reason.
Orange is the color of gun violence awareness, and Friday was National Gun Violence Awareness Day, which brought dozens to the canal to remember the lives lost in the past year.
Ninety names — each one was read aloud under a blue sky along Indianapolis’ downtown canal.
Their ages and stories were all different.
What they had in common though was how they died. Someone pulled the trigger of a gun and ended their lives.
You’re growing up with the people, and then they’re just no longer here at all,” said 20-year-old Aaron Hampton, who said he recognized some of the names he heard as classmates from school.
“I’m not used to it, but I’m used to it. It’s happened so many times,” Hampton said, explaining that it’s also happened to people he's loved. He lost his brother in 2015 to a shooting and later his nephew was also shot and killed.
“He died up here at the canal,” Hampton said, standing next to other young people, all of them from Brightwood Community Center who came to the event aimed at drawing attention to gun violence and those impacted by it.
A handful of Democratic lawmakers also joined those gathered at the canal.
Many of them have authored bills during past sessions calling for measures like safe storage for guns or the creation of a task force to review data on the causes of gun violence.
Those bills did not make it over the finish line to become laws.
“I don’t think it’s a Republican or Democrat issue to say, 'can we help responsible gun users and gun owners across the board, safely secure their firearms so that those who don’t have to have access to them...they stay away from them?'” said Democratic State Sen. Fady Qaddoura.
Friday’s gathering was organized by Moms and Students Demand Action — groups that advocate for finding solutions to end gun violence.
“I know it affects everyone but especially our young folks because I was that young person too,” said Shonna Majors, the executive director of the Brightwood Community Center.
Majors works with teens like Hampton and has her own story.
At 16, she says she was accidentally shot by another teen who had a gun.
“He was playing with the trigger, and he shot me in the back,” Majors explained.
The bullet is still there.
“There are days I can’t get out of bed and walk,” Majors said.
Friday was not one of those days, so Majors came to the canal wearing orange too. She was glad to see she wasn’t alone but wishing she saw more people doing the same.
“This place should be packed,” she said.