Speaking at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building on 125th street, Minister Louis Farrakhan addressed Harlemites saying, "Change will not come out of the sky." The rally, which addressed peace and personal responsibility, drew in a crowd of over 300 people, and was spurred on by the recent string of deadly gun violence that has plagued the Black community this summer. The minister summed it up saying, "It's a shame that after 310 years of chattel slavery and 150 years of injustice that we are worse in our treatment of each other." The local community experienced a cruel summer, as the shooting of five people in Rucker Park during a basketball tournament, the death of four-year-old Lloyd Morgan (shot in the head from a stray), and the death of Heaven Sutton (a 7-year-old killed by a stray bullet) represent incidents that call for a desperately needed change within the Black community.

Farrakhan diagnosed the situation, saying, "We are holding ourselves back. You can't keep blaming the White man." He added, "The question is, 'What are we doing today to undo what he did?'" The people in attendance welcomed the message of the minister, who also made stops in Jamaica, Queens, Newark, New Jersey, and Brownsville, Brooklyn as part of a 100-plus city tour to address the rampant violence erupting across the nation.