Hundreds, Joined By Atlanta Mayor, Mourn After Orlando Attack

“Tenth and Piedmont is a symbolic corner where the LGBT community comes together all the time, ironically enough a year ago this month to celebrate marriage equality, and now we know that we still have a very long way to go,” Garrett said.

  He said he had many friends in Orlando who were all alright, but all of whom knew someone who’d been injured or died in the attack.

The mood on the corner vacillated between sorrow and a determination to honor and maintain the kind of liveliness gay spaces are known for —  a moment of silence, followed by a somber national anthem and back to the thump of pop music.

Many broke down with emotion as a small brass band played the hymn “Salvation Is Created.”

“I woke up to my mom calling me,” said Jessica Vaughan, holding back tears as she spoke. She’d been out with friends Saturday night in Atlanta.

“I had no idea. I didn’t know, and it was heartbreaking just knowing that we were at Bazaar last night and this could have happened here. My heart goes out to everyone affected. It’s just really sad,” Vaughan said.

Ames Simmons, a volunteer with Human Rights Campaign, echoed the thought that such an attack could just as easily targeted Atlanta.

“It just is a wakeup call that there’s a lot of bigotry and intolerance that’s floating in the public discourse right now that we have to answer with calls for increased understanding and more dialogue and love, and not react with hate or fear,” said Simmons, who added he’d just come out as a transgender man in the last year.

“Constantly I’m asking myself, ‘Did I pick the wrong moment to do this?’ The most we can do is try to make it safe for everybody to be who they are right here at home in the South,” he said.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed attended the vigil to pay his respects.

“I came here tonight just to be here with everybody because to the extent that we eliminate stigma, we eliminate targets,” said Reed, who added he’d been working on security strategy that day. He also said he planned to sit with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community leaders to work out where and how best to keep them safe.

“Police protection can be misconstrued to be abuse. We’ve had that history in our city, and I don’t want to repeat it,” Reed said.

Sunday night’s gathering was well-monitored by Atlanta police.

“We have officers in plainclothes, we have officers in uniform as well as officers in different posts throughout this area,” the Atlanta Police Department’s LGBT liaison Acashia Lavigeour said.

She said it was important for her personally to be a part of the community embrace.

“I’m from Fort Pierce, Florida, where the alleged gunman was from. Orlando is an hour and a half away from where I’m from. I’ve been to Pulse before, so it is a very touching subject, but I’m a part of the LGBT community and I wanted to come out and support as well,” Lavigeour said.

“People are saying this was an act of terrorism; it absolutely was an act of terrorism,” said Jana Al-Nahhas who had come out to the vigil with several friends, all wearing head scarves.

“However, I don’t see it as being attached to the Islamic faith at all, and I find it important that people know that we as Muslims, we’re your allies. And honestly, I feel more safe and assured and included in this space than I do outside of it.”

Al-Nahhas, who identified herself as an ally, said when she heard about the background of the man identified as the attacker, her first instinct was feeling like she didn’t want to leave her house.

“I was walking into this like ‘I don’t know how this is going to go,’ and the moment I found myself in the middle of it I felt at peace and at home,” Al-Nahhas said.

She said it was important for her to be visible and express love and support for both the Muslim and LGBT communities.

“We both experience a lot of hatred from the outside. This is an act that’s trying to divide us with hate, and I don’t want to fall for that,” she said.

The gathering, which drew several hundred to the corner, was one of many in the Atlanta area Sunday night.