‘We’re all in this together,’ church rally declares

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    Tulsa, OK (Tulsa World) — After marching half a mile on a 93-degree afternoon, Pastor Paul Daugherty knelt on the blistering asphalt to end Sunday’s rally with prayer.

“Only God can heal our nation,” Daugherty told a diverse crowd of several hundred people who walked in Victory Christian’s Peaceful March for Racial Healing, beginning and ending in the church’s parking lot near 81st Street and Lewis Avenue.

Marchers sung “This Little Light of Mine” and other gospel tunes, carried signs with “Love your neighbor” and other scriptural references, and invited uniformed sheriff’s deputies to lead the way a quarter-mile down Lewis Avenue and back.

One of Tulsa’s largest congregations, the church wanted to offer an alternative to more boisterous protests that have swept across Tulsa and the rest of the country since the death of George Floyd on May 25, organizers said.

“We wanted to make a statement about the issues that are dividing our country,” said Sharon Daugherty, who co-founded the church in 1981 and turned leadership over to her son in 2014.

“Man can build things but God has to be at the center if it’s going to last. It will be a supernatural thing.”

Marchers included Don Ailsworth, who served in the Los Angeles Police Department before moving to Tulsa about 30 years ago, originally to seek treatment at Oral Roberts University’s now-defunct City of Faith hospital.

Four years ago, Ailsworth attended a protest over the death of 40-year-old Terence Crutcher, a black motorist who was killed by a white police officer in Tulsa. And on the same day in September 2016, Ailsworth also attended a rally to support the police, telling news reporters at the time that people shouldn’t have to choose between the two sides.

“Love one another,” he said in a quote that ran in several newspapers across the country. “Hatred isn’t going to work.”

His message hasn’t changed.

Love unites people of all colors, Ailsworth told the crowd Sunday after the pastor handed him a bullhorn.

“One God. One faith. One baptism,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”

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