Valley’s Sojourn to the Past embodies legacy of MLK

Over the past 10 years, the Mahoning Valley has been blessed to have an angel among us in the form of the Youngstown-based Sojourn to the Past youth initiative. And as of Saturday night, now the whole wide world knows of the stellar good works of these exemplary students dedicated to promoting nonviolence.

Inside the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Atlanta on Saturday, the King Center’s annual Salute to Greatness ceremony singled out Sojourn for its 2016 ANGEL – Advancing Nonviolence through Generations of Exceptional Leadership – Award. That high honor serves as a fitting and timely tribute to the Youngstown group that embodies the legacy of nonviolence, justice and constructive change of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose 87th birthday our nation celebrates today.

We congratulate and commend Sojourn, under the passionate and superlative leadership of former Youngstown schoolteacher Penny Wells, for its richly deserved honor. Furthermore, we urge its members to continue their mission to soak in the history of racial injustice and violence in our nation as a means to achieve their larger goal to promote nonviolence in our community, our state and our nation.

SOJOURN’S MISSION

Sojourn to the Past, established in the Youngstown City Schools in 2007, assembles a group of responsible high school students who take part in a 10-day journey through some of the most noble and ignoble battlegrounds and victory fields of the civil-rights movement in the American South. There they get living lessons from veterans of the struggle on justice, nonviolence, civic responsibility, hope, compassion and tolerance. They then incorporate those lessons into their daily lives as leaders for social justice and nonviolence in their schools and community.

Sojourn’s work and goals intimately parallel those of Dr. King, the civil-rights leader for whom all Americans should pause to remember and honor today.

Dr. King, after all, stands out as a champion for peaceful change. He once proclaimed, “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”

Sojourn has grasped firmly onto that weapon as a primary tool to achieve progressive change. In its workshops, rallies, parades, educational campaigns and political drives, it hammers home the necessity to resolve disputes peacefully.

Dr. King also relied heavily on youth talent and energy to accomplish his lofty goals. Perhaps most notably, thousands of elementary and high-school students responded to King’s appeal in 1963 to stand up for justice in a march through Birmingham. There they withstood peacefully the pain of seething attack dogs and gushing fire hoses to validate and reinforce their public-spirited principles.

Five decades later, our Valley’s Sojourners have responded to the enduring clarion call of Dr. King by taking the helm of a variety of positive nonviolence-focused campaigns aimed at producing change by working responsibly within the system – despite the odds.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS ABOUND

Just as Dr. King contributed to the architecture of the landmark civil-rights acts of the 1960s, Sojourn students have helped to craft legislation on state and local levels to implement a week focused on promoting nonviolent means to resolve differences. Their efforts led to proclamations by the city school board, city council and even the state Legislature. They culminated on July 11, 2013, when Gov. John Kasich signed into law the designation of the first full week in October each year as “Nonviolence Week in Ohio.”

That campaign also has stretched to Capitol Hill, where U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., himself a veteran of some of the most vicious civil-rights struggles in our history, has worked to establish a designation of Nonviolence Week across the country. Unfortunately, Lewis’ resolution, which includes many praiseworthy references to Youngstown’s Sojourn program and to Wells, has languished and died in committee, most recently in the 2014 session of the do-nothing Congress of recent years.

We’re certain our Youngstown Sojourners will not give up that worthwhile objective without a continued fight. Toward that end, we urge Rep. Lewis to reintroduce the resolution and for members of the Valley and Ohio delegations to assist the local students in their lobbying campaign for its passage.

Not only would that serve as a lasting tribute to the local Sojourn group, it also would prolong through the ages the awe-inspiring dream of the esteemed civil- rights leader whose accomplishments and legacy of nonviolence we hail today.