Amos Brown, center, with fellow clergy Franzo King and Malcolm J. Byrd, mourned Richardson's death at a rally today

GUARDIAN PHOTO BY YAEL CHANOFF

Family, friends and community members grieving for the life of Lawrence Richardson will meet on Fillmore and Eddy at 6:15 tonight for a candle light vigil. Richardson, 21, was shot and killed on Eddy April 2.

His death marks the 18th homicide in San Francisco this year.

At a rally at City Hall marking the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP, mourned the young man’s death.

Brown, who has been Pastor at San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church since 1976, said Richardson was enrolled in his church’s after school program Back on Track. The murder occurred four blocks from the church.

“We are sad today to report that we have not become a harmonious society. That there is great dissonance of violence, there is great dissonance of destruction, in the land today,” said Brown, referencing Martin Luther King’s 1964 speech at the University of Dayton in which he said that “every man, from a bass black to a treble white, is significant on God’s keyboard.”

The vigil is organized in part by The Healing Circle for the Soul Support Group, a group for those who have lost a loved one due to violence.

No arrests have been made in Richardson’s murder.