With the National Council of Churches and Sojourners, along with other national partners, FAN supports this National Day of Mourning and Lament on June 1 for 100,000 deaths related to COVID-19 and invites you to mark it in your faith communities this weekend and/or Monday, June 1. Please consider their call to action below and let us know what your community plans to do, in case we get media inquiries:

We are so grateful to each of you for the courage and leadership to unite together across all of our traditions, to bring about unprecedented unity to mourn and lament the loss of these 100,000 dead.

Our call is for two things:

  • Over the weekend we hope as many faith communities as possible will mark this grim milestone with time for lament and mourning–in whatever way is best and most appropriate in your respective traditions.
  • Call on your elected officials—Mayors, Governors, and Members of Congress–to make Monday, June 1st a National Day of Mourning and Lament–remembering the dead with moments of silence, lowering of flags, interfaith vigils, and civic memorials.

To accomplish this, we are asking you to do the following things and to call on your networks, faith communities, faith leaders, etc.—using our suggested framework and adapting and editing to your needs—to do the following things:

  • Have a time of lament and mourning in your services this weekend
  • Reach out to your elected officials—especially Mayors— but also Governors, and Member of Congress calling on them to make Monday, June 1st a National Day of Mourning and Lament
  • Reach out to any press and media contacts you have letting them know of this call and asking them to cover it and your efforts involved with it

To help to coordinate and unify our efforts we ask you to use the following title and hashtags when communicating about the event:

Title: National Day of Mourning and Lament
Hashtags: #DayofMourning #Lament100k

This call is being supported by the U.S. Conference of Mayors who represent over 1,400 mayors across the country. Mayors lead on the frontline of the COVID-19 response effort and continue to provide critical local leadership amid this difficult time.

Together, interfaith leaders and mayors across the nation will seek to transcend our divisions and call us to lament, mourn, and honor the dead; acknowledge the unequal suffering; pray together for the healing of the nation; and recommit ourselves to the difficult work ahead.

If you have not done so already, please commit to partner together in getting this out as broadly as possible to your organizations, faith communities, and networks.