Baltimore Ceasefire 365 will now be known as the Baltimore Peace Movement, the group announced Tuesday night.

The group wanted a name that is reflective of its new philosophy, co-organizer Letrice Gant said following the announcement.

“Our new philosophy is that we are a peace movement and not an anti-violence movement,” she said, adding that “what you focus more on, you get and see more of.”

The Baltimore Peace Movement is now looking for new logo ideas, which can be sent to BmorePeaceMovement@gmail.com, according to its announcement.

The group, founded in 2017, last week announced plans to change its name. Gant said community members submitted six pages of ideas, both at a brainstorming session on Nov. 6 and through social media.

From Sunday to Tuesday afternoon, the group’s two co-founders and four co-organizers met to discuss which names “really spoke to our souls, and spoke to our vision for Baltimore for the next 25 years or so,” Gant said.

“We wanted to be very thoughtful, very intentional,” she added.

They narrowed the choices down to two: Baltimore Peace Movement and Baltimore Peace Promise. The former would become its official name, they decided, and the latter would become the group’s new hashtag.

With its new name, the group hopes to emphasize that “the narrative about Baltimore being this hyper-violent place, is inaccurate,” Gant said.

Since its founding as Baltimore Ceasefire, the group has worked year-round to hold weekend-long events calling for a pause to gun violence.

During its first weekend, from Aug. 4 to Aug. 6, 2017, more than 50 community events were planned, and for 67 of those 72 hours there were no murders, according to the group’s website. When two Baltimore residents were lost to gunfire during those hours, community members came together to celebrate them, and the movement’s leaders supported their families and offered information about free funeral services.

That weekend was initially supposed to be the group’s first and only — but given the support it received, organizers decided to continue.

Over the last five years, the group has held 22 Ceasefire weekends in total. A 2020 American Journal of Public Health study, which included contributions from Gant and co-founder Erricka Bridgeford, found gun violence dropped by an estimated 52% during Ceasefire weekends.

Baltimore Banner reporter Penelope Blackwell contributed to this report.

cadence.quaranta@thebaltimorebanner.com