New London — Gwen Carr lived through the agony of losing her firstborn son.

And despite the pain that kept her in bed and in mourning in the days that followed the 2014 death of her son Eric Garner at the hands of police, Carr said she eventually gathered the strength to fight back.

“The Lord spoke to me one night and said, ‘Gwen, are you going to just lay there and die like your son or are you going to get up out of that bed and lift your son’s name up and let them know who he really was?’” Carr said. “Other people's children will die and no one will care. I have to try and make a difference. That’s when I got up out of bed and tried to turn my mourning into a movement, my sorrow into strategy. So now that terrible tragedy has become my testimony.”

Speaking to a packed house at the annual New London NAACP Freedom Dinner, Carr called for activism and the need for accountability and transparency among police.

Garner, 43, died while in police custody for allegedly selling loose cigarettes in July 2014 in Staten Island, N.Y. In a video that went viral, NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo can be seen holding Garner around the neck and wrestling him to the ground in what many have called an illegal chokehold.

The officers then didn't assist him despite his repeated pleas of “I can't breathe.”

Garner’s death led to protests and nationwide outrage about his treatment at the hands of police and has played a role in the ongoing conversation about police brutality against people of color.

“They took away part of me, they left a gaping hole in my heart,” Carr said. “To have him ripped away from me the way it happened, I will never get over it.”

Carr has joined the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Sandra Bland to form the Mothers of the Movement Campaign and promote criminal justice reforms and police officer accountability.

A Staten Island grand jury cleared the officers of criminal wrongdoing in Garner's death, but federal authorities began their own investigation, which is still pending.

Carr has stayed active.

In 2015, under pressure from Carr and other activists, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed an executive order naming the state attorney general as a special prosecutor for police-related civilian deaths, taking the prosecution of police officers out of the hands of the local district attorney.

She was among other members of Al Sharpton's National Action Network arrested during a protest over President Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick, Judge Neil Gorsuch.

Carr’s story linked to the theme of Thursday’s dinner, "Steadfast and Immovable," and represents the goals and initiatives of NAACP branches on  local, state and national levels, according to Tamara Lanier, vice president of the New London NAACP branch and chairwoman of the Freedom Fund Committee.

Carr’s efforts are not unlike those of state Rep. Robyn Porter, D-New Haven, who introduced Carr at Thursday’s dinner and fought during this legislative session to enact “An Act Concerning Police Misconduct,” which would have required the state Division of Criminal Justice to make a preliminary decision within five days on whether the use of force by a police officer was justified and required the officer’s immediate suspension during an investigation.

The bill did not gain widespread support, and Porter said it was erroneously labeled as “anti-cop.” She promised a continuing fight for the legislation despite lobbyists who made threats to legislators.

“I’m just sick and tired of turning on the news and having to cry ... and weep and mourn and grieve and hurt. The bellyache is real. The soul ache is real. It’s a wound that never heals. Every single day it’s something else,” Porter said.

The night also featured a series of community awards. Longtime local minister the Rev. Harold E. Montgomery Jr. and retired judicial marshal Waldren "Pokey" Phillips, a past president of the New London branch of the NAACP, were honored with lifetime achievement awards.

Community Partner Awards were handed out to the Rev. Carolyn Patierno of the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church and to Nekiesha Grant, director of the Opportunities Industrialization Center of New London County. New London girls' basketball coach Holly Misto received the Community Champion Award.

g.smith@theday.com