Tarrant interfaith walk returns to promote peace, unity among faiths

Christians, Jews, Muslims, members of other faith communities and freethinkers are expected to gather in Colleyville this weekend for a nearly 3-mile walk for peace. 

Since 2018, local faith and community leaders have hosted an annual walk in Tarrant County to promote peace and unity. The Nov. 7 walk marks the physical return of the gathering, which has been virtual since 2024. 

The mission of Peace Together is simple, president and founder Howard Rosenthal said: building relationships among neighbors. Participants are encouraged to walk with someone they don’t know and build conversation.

“We’re not incapable of making a difference,” Rosenthal said. 

If you go

What: Peace Together 2026 Peace Walk 

When: 12:30 p.m. Nov. 7

Where: First United Methodist Church of Colleyville, 1000 Church St., Colleyville

Register here to participate in the walk.

Opening ceremonies will begin inside the church at 12:30 p.m. About 1 p.m., the 2.8-mile walk will proceed from First United Methodist Church of Colleyville to McPherson Park. 

A shuttle service will transport walkers from McPherson Park back to their cars, according to the website. 

From national tragedy to local peace movement 

The genesis of Peace Together came after Rosenthal saw white supremacists gather in Charlottesville, Virginia, for a Unite the Right rally in 2017 protesting the city’s decision to remove a statue of the Confederate General Robert E. Lee. 

Rosenthal remembers how disturbed he felt seeing videos of neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and other white supremacists walking the streets at night with torches in hand, yelling antisemitic and anti-Muslim tropes. A participant drove a car into a group of counterprotesters, resulting in one death and several injuries. 

A few days following the tragedy, Rosenthal visited the rabbi who at the time led Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville. 

“In this day and age, how can this happen? How can people carry that much hatred toward others?” Rosenthal remembers asking the rabbi. 

Through the help of his rabbi, Rosenthal began connecting with people of different faiths: Christians, Muslims, Jews and freethinkers — such as those who identify as atheist or agnostic. 

The group met regularly to break bread, show support for one another and express their unanimous feeling that the actions in Charlottesville were not representative of what the group wanted for future generations. 

In February 2018, the group organized its first Peace Together walk starting at First United Methodist Church of Colleyville. 

Rosenthal said he was expecting about 50 people. 

Instead, there were hundreds. 

“Everybody felt so strongly that any kind of senseless acts of violence should be denounced,” said Ayesha Shafi, a Peace Together steering committee member and CEO of the South Asian Radio station called Radio Azad. “Because united as a community, we become stronger, not weaker.”

To Shafi, a Muslim, the walk exemplifies a fundamental commandment from the Quran about treating neighbors with kindness: an opportunity to share beliefs, faiths and commonalities. 

“The walk really gives us that,” Shafi said. 

Peace formed through relationships

The walk created interfaith bonds long before local tragedies struck. 

The walk was canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2022, members of Congregation Beth Israel were held hostage inside their Colleyville synagogue. The 11-hour standoff ended with all the hostages managing to escape.

Good Shepherd Catholic Community, a neighboring place of worship, opened their doors to families of those who were held hostage, Rosenthal said. Muslim Peace Together participants, among others, came to bring the families food and offer support. 

“It took me a few days after that whole thing was over to come to the conclusion that Peace Together was very much the right thing to have been doing, and that proved it to me when those people showed their care for the Jewish community,” Rosenthal said.

One of the most difficult moments the walk experienced was following Oct. 7, 2023, the date Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip. The walk, typically held at the beginning of November, was canceled that year. For the past two years gatherings have been virtual. 

“Here we are, almost three years later, and I think a lot of people, Muslims and Jews, are still in a state of mourning over all this,” Rosenthal said. “I think most of us have decided that we can’t control that, so we’re going to go ahead and try to go forward, and at least among ourselves, try to have good relationships.” 

Zachary Moore is a North Texas freethinker who has previously served on the Peace Together steering committee. Freethinkers can be considered an umbrella term for groups who may identify with one or more of the groups known as atheists, agnostic or humanist — the stance that emphasizes human agency and moral responsibility. 

For a long time Moore said he experienced difficulty bringing freethinkers like himself into interfaith spaces. 

“A perception I think a lot of people have, they think ‘What purpose do atheists have doing interfaith stuff?’” Moore said. “It’s important because it benefits all of us to learn from and be exposed to people who have different ideas from us.” 

Moore has been with Peace Together from the beginning and participated in every walk since its first debut in 2018. This year is no different. 

To him, the walk is an example of how people with different backgrounds can all call Tarrant County home. 

“We are able to live together, and we’re able to love each other as fellow human beings. As — dare I say — as Christ told us to love each other, right?” Moore said. “You see the best of humanity, whatever your background is, when you are behaving in that way. … That’s what I hope the Peace Walk represents right now in Tarrant County.” 

For Christine Sturgeon, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, peace is formed through relationships. 

“We know each other, we tend to like each other better,” said Sturgeon, a steering committee member. 

Every time Sturgeon has participated in a Peace Together gathering, she’s learned something, she said. She remembers one year she walked with an atheist and realized their extent of knowledge about world religions. She learned from her Sikh friends that the word “guru” in Punjabi means from darkness to light. 

Looking ahead, she hopes participants can have moments Sturgeon describes as little pearls she’s gleaned from each event. 

“From every religion there are these pearls and beautiful things that can be appreciated regardless of what we personally believe,” Sturgeon said. “I think we should know more about each other and about our different ways, and see the common things, see the beautiful things, things we didn’t know.”

Marissa Greene is the faith and fellowships editor at the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at [email protected].

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