Training to end school violence

By Harold Gwin

YOUNGSTOWN — Thomas Fields believes the city’s high school students might be well-served by following Martin Luther King Jr.’s fifth principal of nonviolence: “Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.”

“If we show more love, maybe our school will be a better place,” said the Chaney High School senior.

Fields is one of several dozen Youngstown high school students participating in nonviolence- training workshops this week as an important part of Nonviolence Week in the schools, a program arranged by a handful of city high school students.

The organizers are part of the Youngstown contingent that went on the Sojourn to the Past last spring, a journey that takes students on a study of the places and people deeply involved in the civil-rights era. Participating in Sojourn requires students to make a commitment to make some positive change in their school and community when they return home.

Youngstown’s students opted for a Nonviolence Week and got the support of the city mayor and council, as well as school officials, for their effort.

The goal is to get the workshop participants to spread the word about nonviolence, said Janae Ward, a Chaney sophomore.

The students wrote and are conducting those workshops, and they got some assistance from a woman who publicly lived the challenges of the civil-rights era as a young woman growing up in Little Rock, Ark., some 50 years ago: Minijean Brown-Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of black students who attempted to enter all-white Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The students were at first refused admission but later were able to attend the school after federal intervention.

Brown-Trickey, a regular Sojourn participant, was in Youngstown to help the Sojourn students prepare for the workshops and sat in on the Monday and Tuesday sessions.

She told of how the group of Little Rock black students was met by a mob of 1,000 people, many of whom yelled insults and threats at them.

“We didn’t expect that kind of greeting because we were going to school,” Brown-Trickey told students in a Tuesday workshop at Chaney.

The Sojourn students asked workshop participants to examine and interpret a photo of one of the Little Rock Nine, Elizabeth Eckford, showing her walking quietly and calmly, holding some school books as she tried to enter school, with a group of angry white people behind her.

Eckford exhibited perfect nonviolent behavior, Brown-Trickey said, adding that the photograph sent around the world made Eckford “a historical icon.”

“That’s a very powerful photograph. Her silence was powerful,” Brown-Trickey said.

That may have been a racial issue in 1957, but nonviolence isn’t about black vs. white, she told the students.

“This is about all of us, all of our experiences every day. You, too, can be Elizabeth Eckford,” she said.

“Just take it a day at a time,” said Joselyn Parker, a Chaney graduate and now a linkage coordinator for the school. “Everybody, just say, ‘I will not be violent today,’” she suggested, adding that soon, that attitude becomes routine.

The workshop offered a number of nonviolent practices that the participants could take with them, such as being a good listener, accepting people as individuals with unique gifts to share and opening their minds before opening their mouths.

“Just think about it,” said Ward.

Students leaving the workshop seemed to take the message to heart.

The information is useful, said Brit’tany Robinson, a Chaney sophomore. It teaches you how to use the principles of nonviolence, she said.

Those in the session learned to think about how they can help others, added Raylette Davenport, also a Chaney sophomore.

The principles of nonviolence are tools for kids to negotiate their lives. Give them that formula rather than a formula of violence against others, Brown-Trickey suggested.

“To me, it is perfect,” she said.

gwin@vindy.com