Rally, parade to start Nonviolence Week

By Denise Dick | September 30, 2011 at 12:02a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Chaney High School senior Janae Ward proposed the idea for a parade and rally to kick off Nonviolence Week as a way to make a statement about the community.

“When I go away to college, I want to come home for Nonviolence Week,” said Janae, 17. “When I tell other people, they’ll say, ‘You have a Nonviolence Week? In Youngstown?’ It’s not just another week. It’s Nonviolence Week in the city schools, in the city, at YSU and in our community.”

The Sojourn to the Past Nonviolence Week, recognized in the city schools, the city and Youngstown State University, begins with a parade at 3 p.m. Sunday in front of YSU’s Williamson College of Business. It proceeds downtown where a rally follows at the city square with speakers including YSU President Cynthia E. Anderson, city school Superintendent Connie Hathorn, Jeff Steinberg, director of Sojourn to the Past, and Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, who integrated Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957.

Nonviolence Week first was observed in the city schools in 2009, and last year it expanded to the city and YSU. This year marks the parade’s first year.

All of the students involved were participants in Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, a 10-day, five-state trip to the sites of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. Penny Wells, Sojourn director, writes grants and organizes fund raisers to help pay for students’ trips.

Participants learn the principles of nonviolence and develop an action plan to inform others. Nonviolence Week, which runs through Oct. 8, was born out of that action plan.

Chaney senior Natalie Byers, 18, said the experience changed her life.

She’s no longer a silent witness if she sees something happening that shouldn’t be.

Nonviolence isn’t just about physical violence, said Alexis Shellow, 17, also a Chaney senior. It’s also about hateful language.

The people who were part of the civil-rights movement endured what they did in part to stop such language used against them.

“If we speak like that to each other, all of their fighting means nothing,” Alexis said.

The Sojourn experience has made her a more compassionate person as well, she said.

“You never know what’s going on in someone’s life,” Alexis said.

It’s changed Natalie, too.

If someone says something unkind to her, rather than responding, she just walks away. She acknowledges, though, that’s hard sometimes.

Nonviolence Week activities continue with Steinberg and Trickey talking about nonviolence at 5 p.m. Monday at First Presbyterian Church, Wick Avenue. The event is open to the public. Events at the city schools run through next Friday.

The students say nonviolence is a way of life.

“We went to the Martin Luther King Museum, and there’s a sign on the wall that says, ‘Nonviolence or Nonexistence,’” Janae said. “It made so much sense.”