Photos from downtown Mansfield on Thursday evening as local residents celebrated the annual National Day of Prayer with a parade from Marion Avenue to the Central Park gazebo. The parade stepped off at 6:30 p.m. and made its way downtown. At the gazebo, participants enjoyed prayer and music. Since the first call to prayer in 1775, when the Continental Congress asked the colonies to pray for wisdom in forming a nation, the call to prayer has continued through the nation’s history, including President Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of a day of “humiliation, fasting, and prayer” in 1863. The National Day of Prayer is an annual observance held on the first Thursday of May, inviting people to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman.
