BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — 1,300 people completed a survey on the 5/14 Memorial, but many feel it should be more than just a memorial to remember the 10 Black lives lost on May 14, 2022.
Michelle Fryson is the niece of Pearl Young and cousin of Margus Morrison. Young and Morrison were killed in the shooting. Fryson stood passionately in front of the 5/14 Memorial Commission Tuesday night.
“It's emotional everyday just living and knowing that these loved ones aren’t coming back,” she says. “So that being said at least have an opportunity for these people to have their voices heard and that did not happen.”
Fryson says her family and others were not part of the survey put out last summer.
“I think it wouldn’t have been as political maybe if many of the family members had a seat,” she says. “And had discussions firsthand with what they thought their family should be memorialized with.”
That survey found 87% of people are in favor of having a material or physical memorial near the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue.
Grady Lewis is a survivor of the mass shooting. He says he’s not in favor of a memorial.
“If Buffalo wants to be an example for the rest of the country we can not allow a white designer, so yeah I’m not really here for the memorial,” he says. “The problem with this country is that we want to put up teddy bears and memorials, but no one wants to fix the problem. Like when the problems going to be fixed? Fix the problem. We got all of these intelligent people in office and they know they have to go after the entities that are promoting racism just as people look at Buffalo East Side being looked at a certain way. We know how racism is pushed in this country.”
Only 1,300 people completed to the survey. There are more than 33,000 residents living on the East Side of Buffalo.
A member of the Buffalo United Resiliency Center named Nafeesah Habeeb says they’ve tried their best to spread the word.
“So we’ve put up as many surveys as possible. Anyone that came in was asked to complete a survey,” says Habeeb. “Some people did not and some people did. So we appreciate the fact that we had it available for the community.”
Mayor Byron Brown tells 7 News reporter Yoselin Person that he understands the pain of many family members.
He has a staff member who lost a loved one in the shooting.
“That staff member has been assigned to work on the 5/14 Commission and has reached out extensively to her family members. So family is important,” he says. “It’s essential to this process, listening to the families is essential and we will continue to do that in different ways that are desired by the families. We don’t want to do anything that the family don’t want to see us do.”
President of the NAACP Rev. Mark Blue is also part of the 5/14 Commission and says he wishes he could do more for the families of the victims.
“We’re looking at every possible phase again. We have a mix of individuals who have been affected by this as well,” he says. “So we try not to leave anyone unturned. We try to be as inclusive as we possibly can.”
Others who attended the meeting hope there will be a solution.
“It's important to be here to just witness what is still being felt, what is being done,” says Bonnie Roesch, an attendee. “How we can heal this community from the nucleus of the city to our suburbs to our entire state, to our country to our world.”
This is still an ongoing process on what the $15 million 5/14 memorial should look like and where it should be built.
The 7 News I-Team has recently learned that the City of Buffalo is asking the state for more money to build the memorial.
READ MORE: Should New York State put more money into a 5/14 memorial?
