More than 3,000 people gathered in Woodruff Park Friday evening in a solidarity march for death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis.
Davis is scheduled to die by lethal injection Sept. 21 for the 1989 shooting death of Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail.
Davis has maintained he is innocent. And seven of nine witnesses at his original trial have either recanted or changed their testimony.
Since then, a worldwide movement has ensued to get the death sentence overturned.
Friday's rally drew protesters from some 300 places around the world, including a delegation from Davis' hometown of Savannah.
At 6 p.m. people began chanting “I am Troy Davis, we are Troy Davis” and soon the crowd was off. As they marched to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Old Fourth Ward, they sang "Let it Shine.”
Representatives from Amnesty International and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People passed out t-shirts emblazoned with “I am Troy Davis” and “Stop the Execution,” respectively.
The march ended at Ebenezer with a service. Speakers, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, led protesters in rousing chants of “Free Troy Davis!"
The Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, Ebenzer's senior pastor, invoked Martin Luther King Jr. and his famous line from Birmingham Jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Added Sharpton: “The reason we are gathered here tonight is blatantly clear. There is no reason for him (Troy Davis) to be on death row tonight!
“This is not about black and white; this is about right and wrong.”
