Several hundred people gathered Saturday morning in Roxbury to stand in solidarity with the victims of police brutality, as well as with police officers killed and wounded during a sniper attack Thursday night in Dallas.

“Black lives do matter, but that does not mean that blue lives do not,’’ said James W. Hills, who organized the rally outside the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building. The rally led into a panel discussion on justice, policing, inequality, and other social issues organized by the group Determined Divas.

The panel was planned months ago, but the rally was organized after the past week’s violence. On Tuesday, a black man was shot to death by officers in Baton Rouge, La., after being pinned to the ground; on Wednesday, another black man was shot to death by an officer in a St. Paul, Minn., suburb during a traffic stop as he reached for his license and registration. On Thursday night, a sniper allegedly angry over those deaths killed five police officers in Dallas, and wounded seven others and two civilians, before being killed by police.

“We are part of the solution,’’ Julia Mejia, an activist with Determined Divas, said during the rally. “We are not the problem. The problem is that we don’t recognize the power that we have to be able to mobilize and work together.’’

The rally and panel drew a diverse crowd, with many children.

The speakers at the panel included City Councilor At-Large Ayanna Pressley, District 4 City Councilor Andrea Campbell, Commissioner of the Boston Centers for Youth & Families William Morales, and Clementina “Tina’’ Chéry, who is president and chief executive of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, which she founded after her 15-year-old son was caught in crossfire and shot to death in 1993.

Pressley spoke about her childhood: She was raised by a single mother, her father battled heroin addiction and was incarcerated, and she suffered sexual abuse, she said.

“I want to break cycles of poverty and violence in all its forms, to reduce trauma in our community,’’ she said. “I also fight for women and girls.’’

Young people spoke about their fears walking down the streets and their need to look over their shoulders. Morales, the BCYF commissioner, told a story about a 12-year-old boy who, when asked where he was from, answered innocently that he lived on Geneva Avenue, not realizing that the question was a “set up’’ by a gang member to identify his alliances. The gang member punched the boy in the face, Morales said. He encouraged the crowd not to ignore the violence in their communities.

The group broke up into small groups to discuss topics including public safety and knowing their rights. By the end of the panel, they had agreed to work together to motivate each other, 17-year-old Davonte Caraballo said.

Pressley said after the panel that she plans to continue her work on a citywide protocol system for trauma response, saying that trauma from homicide and nonfatal shootings was affecting the city. She said she wants to focus on the public schools and identifying students affected by trauma.

Evan Allen can be reached at evan.allen@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @evanmallen.