By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER MANHATTAN — Donning white wedding dresses, hundreds of women marched from Washington Heights to East Harlem in a show of solidarity against domestic violence on Sunday.
Men also marched, wearing black to honor victims who died at the hands of the violence.
The 10th Annual Gladys Ricart and Victims of Domestic Violence Memorial Walk, commonly known as the Bride’s March, honors Ricart who was murdered ten years ago by an ex-boyfriend on the day she was scheduled to marry her fiancé.
According to organizers the New York Latinas Against Domestic Violence, the walk "also mourns and memorializes other victims who have been killed in domestic violence related incidents, and raises awareness of the seriousness and horrors of family violence."
According to a Manhattan District Attorney's Office public statement last year, domestic violence is a problem that "disproportionately affects Northern Manhattan."
Marchers walked seven miles from Washington Heights’ Fort Washington Heights Presbyterian Church to Julia de Burgos Cultural Center in East Harlem with Northern Manhattan marchers posting messages and photos on Twitter during the march. Upper Manhattan photographer Paul Lomax aslo documented the march, featured in our DNAinfo slideshow.
"The strength and power of these women is inspiring," Tweeted Inwood blogger Zaida Grunes, who joined the march as part of a group organized by the uptown mother’s blog Young Urban Moms (YUM), which awarded participants with a free coupon for a self-defense/boxing lesson from the Inwood Boxing Academy.
"It’s so important that these victims realize that it’s not, and that we—as the strong group that we are—bring that awareness and support," YUM founder Carolina Picardo wrote on her blog.
