A candlelight vigil in Nashville Wednesday night drew hundreds to grieve the victims of the mass school shooting which claimed six lives earlier this week, with local residents Sheryl Crow and Margo Price among those offering performances as part of the public grieving.
The event was relatively brief — only about half an hour — but powerful and moving, attended by First Lady Jill Biden, a host of local and state elected officials, police officers, and clergy, along with the musicians who performed songs obviously chosen with great care for the somber occasion.
Sheryl Crow, who has spent more than 15 years as a Nashville-area resident, accompanied herself at a piano to sing “I Shall Believe,” a hymn-like track from her breakthrough album “Tuesday Night Music Club.” The crowd soaked up the hopeful balm of the spiritually tinged ballad in the wake of the shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, the small Christian elementary academy where three children and three adults were killed by a 28-year-old assailant carrying two assault weapons and a pistol.
“Come to me now, and lay your hands on me,” sang Crow. “Say it will be all right, and I shall believe.” She tagged the end of the song with a chorus of Dionne Warwick’s “What the World Needs Now (is Love, Sweet Love).”
Singer-songwriter Margo Price stood alone at a microphone and ripped into an a cappella version of Bob Dylan’s rebellious “Tears of Rage,” recorded by the Band in 1967. “Tears of rage, tears of grief,” she sang. “We’re so alone, and life is brief.”
Ketch Secor, the multi-instrumentalist co-founding member of the award-winning Old Crowe Medicine Show band, strapped on a banjo to sing the Carter Family standard “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” accompanied by his young son on harmonica.
He later closed the show with Price, singing “Amazing Grace” and “I’ll Fly Away” as six silver balloons, representing the Covenant victims, were released to make their way silently into the twilight, catching the last golden rays of the setting sun, and a gentle breeze, before disappearing over the downtown skyline.
As I walked through the crowd before the event, watching staffers from the Nashville mayor’s office pass out candles from baskets and bins, I spoke with several attendees, almost all of whom were hopeful for more love, fewer guns, and something uplifting to believe as Music City reckons with a new designation — the latest city now on the grim list of first-name places — including Uvalde (Texas), Newtown (Connecticut) and Parkland (Florida) — marred by the tragedy of a mass school shooting.
To date, some 175 people have died at such incidents across America at schools and colleges, according to the Associated Press.
Police shot and killed the shooter, a former student, minutes after they arrived on the scene.
“It seems so surreal that it could happen here,” said Nashville resident Caroline Vaughn, 28. “But it could happen anywhere. Getting together and mourning together is important—a little bit of collective grief and catharsis.”
The need for grieving was palpable as a crowd hungry for signs of stillness, safety, calm and reassurance huddled together at Nashville’s Public Square Park, on the grounds ringed by crews of national media in front of the city’s Metropolitan Courthouse. The imposing government building was a symbolic backdrop for the hopes expressed by many that Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature — widely regarded as lax on gun regulation, registration and background checks — would enact stricter gun laws.
Guns are a deeply entrenched political issue, and the Covenant shootings made that sore subject even more raw in Music City, where concerned citizens have renewed their calls for more action. But the vigil offered an opportunity to close the political divide, and perhaps ease the tension, in a few sacred moments of memorial for lives lost and suffering friends and family members, no matter what political colors anyone flies.
“Grief is not partisan,” noted Caroline Vaughn with a sigh. “But action is.”
Jill Biden didn’t speak at the event, but instead stood silently and solemnly watching the proceedings, while her husband, President Joe Biden, remained back in D.C., calling on Congress to ban assault weapons in response to the Covenant shootings.
Lorianne Solms, lighting a candle for her 11-year-old daughter, Rhett, certainly knows about the brevity of life and the rising tide of danger for children. She’s a pediatric nurse at a free clinic in East Nashville. “I’m so sick of this happening,” she told me. “This feels very close to home. Guns are the number-one cause of death in kids. This is crazy. I vote, and I do things, but it’s just not enough. It’s so easy to get an assault rifle; it’s insane. I feel very vulnerable.”
Her daughter, a fifth grader, was also shaken. “I’m a little bit more nervous to go to school now,” Rhett said. “I’m confused about what might happen next.”
Victoria, 37, a mother there with her own two young children, told me she came “to support the families,” she said, noting that when children are involved, we’re all connected. “Even though they’re not my kids, they’re still our babies.”
Margo Price, an outspoken advocate for gun safety, had earlier posted an emotional plea on Instagram for voters to oust legislators who support permit-less carry, who take millions in contributions from the NRA, and who want to lower the age of gun ownership from 21 to 18. “Let’s help end this nightmare,” she wrote. “Children shouldn’t have to go to school and fear for their lives.”
The Covenant School children who died (Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs) were all nine years old. The adult victims were the head administrator of the school (Katherine Koonce), a substitute teacher (Cynthia Peak) and the longtime janitor (Mike Hill), whose family members were in attendance, alongside other dignitaries on stage.
The crowd bowed their heads for an opening prayer with pastor Clay Stauffer, whose church—Woodmont Christian—held its own vigils after the shooting at Covenant, its Nashville neighbor in the leafy suburb of Green Hills. “This is a strong city,” Stauffer told the crowd. “Tonight is a time to come together, to mourn, to grieve, to cry, to remind ourselves that we will get through this.”
In his brief address at the podium, Nashville Mayor John Cooper thanked President Biden for ordering flags lowered to half-mast after the shooting, called off the first names of the victims—an encouragement to remember them as real people, not gloomy statistics—and praised the actions of first responders. He also urged Nashvillians to lean on each other in this time of great trauma. “Just two days ago was our city’s worst day,” he said. “When words can’t carry the weight of what is in our hearts, we must reach out to each other, to help each other carry the load.”
Many others also praised the decisive effectiveness of Nashville’s Metro Police Department, which responded to the 911 call, dispatched officers to Covenant School, entered and applied deadly force to eliminate the threat — all within less than 15 minutes. Their textbook response is credited with preventing even more casualties.
“They’re heroes in our eyes,” said Joe Miller, who was at the vigil with his wife, April. “They saved many lives.”
