DAYTON — More than 100 people gathered at Courthouse Square Sunday to call for justice in the slaying of Trayvon Martin in Florida and the killings of other young black men in the Dayton area.

Religious leaders and local activists urged participants to come together and take action in their neighborhoods and work together against injustices.

The rally was organized by The Adam Project Inc., a Dayton faith-based organization that works with young males trying to escape gang life and adult male ex-prisoners re-entering society.

“Trayvon Martin is really the Emmett Till of our day,” said Jerome McCory, president and CEO of The Adam Project, during an interview. “He was a squeaky clean young man walking through a neighborhood wearing a hood, talking on a cellphone with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea.”

Till was 14 when he was murdered by two white men in 1955 after he whistled at a white woman in Mississippi.

Martin, a 17-year-old black male, was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer while walking from a store in Sanford, Fla. in late February. George Zimmerman alleged he shot Martin in self-defense and has not been arrested.

Mothers, fathers, young children and teens wore hooded sweatshirts and held up signs in support of Martin during the rally that lasted more than an hour. Parents voiced their fears that their children could suffer the same fate as the teen.

“I really think there needs to be justice for Trayvon Martin,” said Yvonne Mason, 38, of Dayton. “I’m scared for my son. If it can happen to Trayvon, it can happen to our sons.

“I don’t want my son to be scared to walk the streets because he has a hood,” Mason added.

“We’re also concerned about the questionable deaths in this community,” McCorrey said, referring to the deaths of Kylen English and Dante Price.

English, 20, died while in police custody in July. Authorities said he escaped from patrol car, while handcuffed, and jumped off the Salem Avenue bridge. Price, 25, died after he was shot multiple times by security guards in an apartment complex last month.