Greenwood residents who have lost loved ones under tragic circumstances are invited to gather on May 29 to celebrate their lives.
The vigil will take place at New Stone Street Park — also known as Martin Luther King Park and located off Martin Luther King Drive — starting at 7 p.m.
“We’re doing a memorial to all fallen angels. This is to celebrate the lives of loved ones who have passed ... whether it’s from gun violence, cancer or illness or any other tragic death,” said Kenderick Cox, a community outreach director for Central Mississippi Inc. who’s assisting with the event.
The event itself is organized by Greenwood MOMS, a collective of Greenwood mothers and other residents who have lost loved ones and have banded together to provide each other with grief support and a listening ear.
“We want to lift each other up and be advocates for each other when we’re going through our moments,” said Ayeshan Nichols, a Greenwood mother who led an effort last August to form the group.
“Our goal is to not only console each other but to come together and see what we can do as mothers to stop the violence that’s’ going on in Greenwood.”
Nichols’ 25-year-old son, Bernard Nichols, was fatally shot in Greenwood in August 2020.
The grief she and others who have lost their children deal with can be difficult to share with others who are not familiar with that pain, the Greenwood native said.
“We feel no one is hurting as much as we are,” she said. “No one knows the pain of a mother who’s lost their son or daughter.”
Noticing the absence of such a group in town, Nichols reached out to other mothers to not only develop a support system but also to bring about peace and other positive impacts in the community to curb violence, she said.
Greenwood MOMS is different from a similarly named organization, MOMS, or Mothers of Murdered Sons, which is known for setting up billboards showing the faces of homicide victims in towns across the Delta, including two billboards in Greenwood.
Greenwood MOMS was founded in order to be more encompassing since MOMS was focused solely on murdered sons, Nichols said.
“We’ve had people who’ve had more than their sons murdered, people who’ve lost daughters and babies in the senseless gun violence in our town,” she said.
The group, which communicates through Facebook Messenger, consists of 25 members so far.
Despite its name, however, Greenwood MOMS is open to all who have lost a child by tragic means, Nichols said. Fathers are encouraged to join since “the male aspect and role is greatly needed,” she said.
Those interested in joining the group may contact Nichols via her Facebook Messenger profile, Ayeshan Nichols.
- Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
