Women gather for workshop on domestic violence

The event was planned as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Kim Henderson Ward can smile now as she recounts a turning point in her life that once caused her to wince with tears and pain.
She spoke of how, after nearly 15 years of living with an abusive man, "I just snapped."
Ward said she had come home from work and found her 4-year-old son playing outside in the cold with no shirt on and no meal on the table. Her common-law husband, who was supposed to be watching the boy, was nowhere to be found.
She found the man and his friends sitting in a car nearby smoking marijuana. When he refused to send his friends home and come home himself, Ward became angry and rammed her car into the back of theirs. Their car flipped, the men scattered and ran, and she chased them in her own car, eventually sliding out of control and hitting a house.
Made changes
That was 10 years ago, and it forced Ward to realize that she needed to make changes in her life. She sought help, left the man and started a new life.
"You're supposed to control your feelings, don't let them control you," Ward said. "If you're in an abusive relationship, you know right from wrong. Get out of it."
As the 39-year-old Youngstown woman told her story Saturday at the Unity Building on McGuffey Road, other women nodded in affirmation.
"I can smile now because I'm out and I'm over it," Ward said, smiling broadly.
Ward was among about 15 women who attended a workshop on black women's response to domestic violence. The speaker was Detective Sgt. Delphine Baldwin-Casey of the Youngstown Police Department's crisis intervention unit.
Baldwin-Casey and Elizabeth Hudson of the Unity Building said the workshop was planned in conjunction with Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
A reluctance to report
Baldwin-Casey said black women often are reluctant to report domestic violence to authorities because they feel that doing so would betray the man, even though he is an abuser, and betray the black community in general because abusers usually are put in jail.
Ward said she had stayed in her abusive relationship for so long because, "I just loved that man." They were high school sweethearts, together since she was 16. Baldwin-Casey said that's a common response.
She said black men often are conditioned to believe that domestic violence against women is acceptable, while black women are conditioned to accept it, because they grow up seeing it among their parents. Her goal is to educate the black community about domestic violence so the cycle can be broken.
"No matter how much you love someone and how loyal you feel, the person you've got to love the most is yourself," Baldwin-Casey said.
She said it's often not easy for a woman to leave an abusive relationship. Some stay with a man out of fear, while others stay because the man offers her financial security.
"You have to leave when you know it's the right time for you," she said, noting that mothers of young children must escape abusive relationships to ensure that they stay alive to raise their children.
bjackson@vindy.com