Where, oh where have your young men gone? Can you tell me where they are? They stayed here not nearly long enough. We looked around and they were gone.

As I write this article, I am being a real cry baby. This article seeks to identify many other cry babies, like myself.

During the past few years, we have lost so many people to physical violence. These senseless acts have cut short the lives of men and women who might very well have made a real difference in life. Why is there such an escalation toward intolerance?

When I ask these questions, I am often told that there is a code of respect “in the streets.”

If a person is disrespected, that person must make the other accountable. Far too often that happens with a gun.

I came up of age in the 1950s. Sparring foes settled their differences with fist fights. Today, there is no civility in our neighborhoods.

Today, we seek to take from others, what is not rightfully ours, and use it for ourselves. There are many reasons for this:

4 We do not want to work for what would be ours.

4 We have not just a survival mentality, we have a “crush you down” prevailing mentality.

4 We have allowed mind-altering drugs to get the better of us.

4 And we do anything to satisfy our lust for these drugs. We destroy ourselves, our families and our community.

Where will it stop?

This Saturday, the NAACP will sponsor a walk beginning at Zion Chapel AME Church at 228 Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

The walk will begin promptly at 1 p.m. and end in the Robert Johnson parking lot near Martin Luther King and Wilson Road.

Immediately following the walk, a rally featuring many speakers who wish to be heard and express their feelings will appeal to the community for law and order.

We need your support. We need to see you there. We need to hear from you.

Saturday will not settle our dilemma.

But, maybe with us showing our support, we can come up with some concrete ideas to start to tackle the problem of violence in our communities.

It is not enough to be a cry baby like me. We must get up and show that we do not approve of the heinous acts being committed in our city, county and surrounding areas.

We need to call the roll on Saturday: Jeron Moore, Bryan Foster, Tenika Blackwell, Tony Hughes, Quentin B. Brown, Carmen Sanders, Willie “Boo” Chatman, Eilda P. Lapoo Robinson, Walter Washington, Cory Sewell, Cedric Morgan, Paul Glover, Ronnie Bo Diddley Jones, Martin Chuck Chavaris, Terry Farmer, Tammie Thomas, Pete Jackson, Edwin “Rell” Harris, Ricky Marsaw, Louise Donaldson, Candis Johnson, Jacqueline Kelley Thompson, James Fluffy Anderson, Rea McDonald and others whose names I do not have.

We will not forget you.

Mary Toles is a member of the NAACP.