Church members, locals unite for ‘Peace Walk’ Saturday in Downtown Charleston

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – Saturday morning, several city locals gathered to answer the call for unity and love through a Peace Walk in the streets of Downtown Charleston.

The walk was organized by leaders of the Micah Project, a lunchtime Bible study group filled with members of Mount Zion and St. Stephen’s Episcopal churches that allows people to have respectful, meaningful conversations that surround divisive issues.

“We have come together as churches to collaborate in just a Christian fellowship where we recognize that there are issues in our society today that divide and separate individuals,” says Kylon Middleton, Pastor of Mount Zion A.M.E.”

Middleton also serves on the Charleston County Council.

“We realized that in this political climate that they are people that go to our churches that are involved in the frontlines of all of the shouting and vitriolic behaviors that we see in the public square, in schools, districts, and council meetings”

Considering the current arguments over vaccinations, mask mandates, and racial equality, the Peace Walk and Micah Project as a whole aim to bring biblical values of justice, mercy, and humility to social issues.

“Today we have united to walk humbly with our god in order to shine a light in the City of Charleston, recognizing that it’s time for the temperature to come down,” Middleton says. “We’ve come looking through the word of God, what God says to us to be a light to your community, we feel that it is time for the church to enter into this space in order to remind the faithful that we ought to love each other, we’ve come lifting up all those issues.”

The 2-mile walk began at Mt. Zion and stopped at multiple landmarks at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 75 Calhoun Street, Wragg Mall, Fetter Health Care center, and Hampstead Mall Playground, ending at St. Julian Devine Community Center with prayers at each stop.