LINCOLN PARK — A North Side lacrosse tournament Saturday brought lots of laughs for the high school players but one moment was as serious as the latest headlines out of Nigeria.
The players, participating in a tournament organized by the Lincoln Park High School team,stopped for a few minutes to hold a moment of silence for the schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria who were taken from their dorms about a month ago.
Some of the players, from a number of Chicago area teams, held "Bring Back Our Girls" signs, in honor of the schoolgirls who the terrorist group Boko Haram has threatened to sell into into slavery.
The signage was provided by the Bring Back Our Girls Chicago group. It included a 6-foot-by-2½-foot red banner with white letters that read: "They Are Our Sisters And Daughters ... #BringBackOurGirls ... Please Rescue Them."
Photos were shared on social media to draw attention to the kidnapping. The tournament at the fields at Montrose Beach was run by Lincoln Park High School girls lacrosse and field hockey coach Megan Brown.
Justin Breen joined DNAinfo Radio to discuss the event:
Lincoln Park High School freshman Esther Mere said "we need these [Nigerian] girls back to school and to the loving embrace of their parents."
She quoted Martin Luther King Jr.'s that "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Chidinma Ohia, a sophomore at Northside College Prep, said the kidnapping is "a violation of human rights in the worst way I've ever seen."
She said the Nigerian government has not done enough to free the girls, saying "they're just standing there."
Before Saturday's event, Brown noted the number of Chicago area players participating and the number of kidnapped girls was around the same — about 200.
"Our girls are so fortunate to live in a country where they have freedom and safety, and those girls just don't have that," Brown said.
Brown, who starred in a national Scrubbing Bubbles Mega Shower Foamer TV commercial earlier this year, said the motivation was to "just to try to keep the pressure on."
Teams participating included squads from Lincoln Park High School, Whitney Young Magnet High School, Northside College Prep, Lane Tech College Prep, Fenwick High School, Nazareth Academy and Mather High School.
