Leaders assail hatred at start of Nonviolence Week in Youngstown

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Civil rights leaders and school and university officials decried hatred and violence as they kicked off the city’s observance of Nonviolence Week with a downtown march and rally on Sunday.

“We must truly dedicate ourselves to love, to nonviolence, to understanding, to respect, every second of every day,” said Cynthia E. Anderson, president of Youngstown State University. “We need to work for a wonderful world free of violence,” she added.

“There’s a lot of violence going on here in the city. As the superintendent of schools, I am committed to making sure that your kids are safe in school,” Connie Hathorn said of the city schools over which he presides.

Hathorn defended his new policy of regularly using metal detectors at school doors as a practical way to prevent potentially deadly violence.

He said he told a man who complained about the detectors that he’d rather explain the new policy now than explain why he didn’t use the detectors after the shooting of a student.

“We can’t change anything unless we do something. So, if you don’t like the violence in your lives, do something about it,” said Minijean Brown-Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, who integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957.