The thousands who trekked for miles in intermittent showers on Sunday were bonded by loss and united in their desire to prevent any more of it. At the 20th Mother’s Day Walk for Peace, purple-clad masses marched from Dorchester to City Hall Plaza in an annual fundraiser that is also a show of solidarity for families impacted by violence. At the march’s opening in Fields Corner, Mayor Martin Walsh condemned the “senseless violence” that continues to plague the city.

Tina Chery co-founded the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute and launched the event in 1996 after her 15-year-old son, Louis D. Brown, was fatally caught in the crossfire between rival gangs in Dorchester in 1993. “Violence is not a Dorchester problem,” Chery said. “Violence is not a Roxbury or Mattapan problem. It is a city problem. We are remembering, we are commemorating, and we’re standing together in unity.”

Accordingly, about 15,000 people marched 6.8 miles from the walk’s traditional starting point at Town Field through Roxbury, the South End, and Downtown Crossing before coming to an emotional close in the shadow of City Hall.

“I envisioned this day 20 years ago,” Chery said at the march’s close. “We were going to be here, and here we are.”

Before the march kicked off, donations had totaled $300,000 from team pledges and advance contributions, with more to be counted in the coming days, organizers said. They set a goal of raising $600,000 through the 20th March, primarily for the Intergenerational Justice Program, which aims to prevent additional violence after offenders are released from prison.
 
The act of violence 23 years ago bonded Chery and the mother of her son’s shooter, Charles Bogues, who was paroled two decades after Brown’s death. “As a parent, I needed to know who could raise a child that could kill,” Chery said. “And I met Doris, a mother just like me who tried her best to raise her son Charles.”

Bogues, who said he is now a union worker and motivational speaker, took to the stage with Chery, thanking her for the opportunity to speak and for choosing the path of healing along with his mother.
There have been 1,296 homicides in Boston since Louis Brown was shot in 1993, Chery said in her closing remarks at City Hall. “They are no longer with us, and we are in pain,” she said. She guessed that, conservatively, each victim leaves behind 10 grieving family members, and “we cannot continue [on], even if homicide is down.”