CWU recognizes work of area couples

The occasion was a human rights celebration.

YOUNGSTOWN — Church Women United of the Youngstown Area recognized the Rev. Lonnie Kwajo Asim and Florence Simon and attorneys Staughton and Alice Lynd during a human rights celebration Dec. 13 at Elizabeth Baptist Church, 1210 Himrod Ave.

Shirley Megown, CWU president, welcomed those attending the program with the theme “God’s Wisdom Honors Children.”

Worship service participants were the Rev. Dwayne Heard, the Rev. Kenneth Simon, Cossell Burton, Tommicien Burney, Vera Hackett, Dorisw VandenBosch, Christine White and Megown. Music was provided by the host choir under the direction of Destry Austin and New Bethel Baptist Church youth choir directed by Janet Write and Kelan Haynes. The service focused on how the community supports children’s physical, financial, emotional and spiritual needs.

The Rev. Mr. Simon is pastor emeritus at New Bethel Baptist, where his son, the Rev. Mr. Kenneth Simon, is pastor. He studied philosophy and religion at Youngstown State University and graduated from Central Bible College of Cleveland and American Baptist Theological Seminary, Nashville, Tenn. He also took other training at Urban Training Center in Chicago and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

He served on the Youngstown Board of Education from 1972-75. He is an alumnus of the First Leadership Class Youngstown, 1985.

In 1965, Mr. Simon participated in the March on Montgomery with the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C., in 1967.

He was moderator of Eastern Ohio Baptist Association for eight years and moderator of Northern Ohio Baptist Association for four years.

He is featured in “Who’s Who in Black America.” In 1995, Mr. Simon was inducted into the International Society of Poets. He has written two anthologies and is working on his autobiography, “Acts of Simon.”

Mrs. Simon, the former Florence Ware, married her husband in 1949. They have four children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

She retired from Sears Roebuck and Co. in 1986.

At New Bethel, she was involved in educational training and development of various initiatives at the church, including the deaconess and mission departments. She is active in the senior adult choir and teaches Christian Women’s classes.

She served as a member of the United Methodist Community Board, and with Protestant Family Service, Church Women United, Baptist Ministers Wives Council and Seniors Teaching and Reaching Students.

She was “Woman of the Year’ at New Bethel in 1985. In 1989, she received the National Negro Association of Business and Professional Women’s Meritorious Service Award and the Mother of the Year award in 1993 from Covenant Chapter 48, Order of Eastern Star.

The Lynds, who were married in 1951, lived in an ecumenical religious community in northeast Georgia. Later, they joined the Religious Society of Friends, known as the Quakers.

In the 1960s, Staughton Lynd taught at a college for black women and participated in the Southern civil rights movement.

In the 1960s, they moved to New Haven, Conn., where Staughton taught at Yale University and Alice was a nursery school teacher at Gesell Institute for Child Development.

Moving to Chicago in 1967, they interviewed union workers for an oral history and worked on issues of occupational health and safety. They went to law school in order to respond to the needs of workers.

The couple moved to Youngstown in 1976. They worked for Northeast Ohio Legal Services, and Staughton represented steelworkers in a case against U.S. Steel. He was an attorney for the Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley. They also assisted chemically disabled workers in establishing Workers Against Toxic Chemical Hazards.

They retired in 1996 and have since become involved in prison-related issues. They investigated the cases of men sentenced to death after the 1993 uprising at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville.

The couple also has written various books, including “Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising.”