The Honorable Geline Williams, NRLC's chairman of the board and the Virginia director to NRLC, served on the planning committee for the Pastors for Life conference. "It was a marvelous program, bringing together a variety of people from different denominations and races, to join together in support of protecting human life," Mrs. Williams said.

Day Gardner, national director of Black Americans for Life, was one of the event's featured speakers. "Too many Black ministers close their eyes to the deaths of Black children by abortion," Ms. Gardner said. She urged pastors to talk openly about the devastation of abortion and to reach out to care for post-abortive women.

The conference attendees listened intently as Ms. Gardner pointed out that, since 1973, eight million African-Americans have died from causes such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, crime, and accidents. Yet an astonishing 14 million African-Americans have died from abortion in that same time span.

"Abortion is the number-one killer of African-Americans," she said.

NRLC's Olivia Gans, who helped distribute Black Americans for Life and NRLC educational literature at the conference, described the multi-racial gathering as "remarkable" and "historic." Gans, the director of American Victims of Abortion, said she was impressed that many of the attendees were young people who were eager to become involved with the pro-life movement.

"The Pastors for Life conference was a substantial effort at uniting people in the community who would never have had the opportunity to work on something like this before," Ms. Gans said.

"It was such a surprise to many people that the conference attendees were so interested and desiring to become involved."  Gans told NRL News, "It just shows that all that is needed is the invitation to participate, and people will respond and respond eagerly."