Local student reflects on King event in Atlanta

January 25, 2016 at 12:05a.m.

ATLANTA

In his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. alluded to the fact that much work toward achieving fairness and equality for everyone and consistently adhering to the principles of nonviolence remained to be done.

King, arguably the nation’s leading civil-rights leader, spoke to thousands at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tenn., that evening in what was his last speech. The next day, he was assassinated.

Nearly 48 years later, Sarina Chatman touched on some of his sentiments.

“I’m so glad to be part of it, but violence has been increasing in Youngstown,” the 2014 Chaney High School graduate and Youngstown State University student lamented.

Chatman was referring to how honored she felt to have been invited to the 34th annual Salute to Greatness Awards Gala on Jan. 16 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta Hotel.

An estimated 1,200 people attended the three-hour dinner and ceremony that the Atlanta-based King Center for Nonviolent Social Change organization hosted. Presenting the awards and speaking several times was the Rev. Bernice King, the center’s chief executive officer and daughter of Martin Luther Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

The awards are given each year to individuals and organizations that best exemplify excellent leadership abilities and commitment to the principles King espoused as well as to those who work toward achieving the “beloved community” of which he often spoke, according to the King Center’s website.

This year’s recipient of the Coretta Scott King ANGEL (Advancing Nonviolence through Generations of Exceptional Leadership) Award was Sojourn to the Past, a San Bruno, Calif.-based traveling American history program. Accepting the award was Jeff Steinberg, Sojourn’s founder and executive director.

The 17-year-old Sojourn to the Past program takes high-school students, their teachers and others on 10-day bus journeys through the Deep South, where they visit sites prominent in and meet key people of the modern civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, then adopt the lessons they learn to their lives.

Among those they hear from are Minnijean Brown-Trickey and Elizabeth Eckford, two black students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., in September 1957; the Rev. Clark Olsen, who came to Selma, Ala., days after 600 marchers had been attacked by police March 7, 1965; and John Lewis, a longtime Georgia congressman and civil-rights icon.

Joining Chatman at the gala were Micah Smith, a 2015 Youngstown Early College graduate, and Penny Wells, founder and director of Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, which is affiliated with the California organization.

The national Sojourn to the Past organization received the award based largely on the accomplishments of the Youngstown Sojourn students, Wells noted.

During the dinner, Wells, Smith and Chatman were recognized for the accomplishments they and other Youngstown students who took the journey have fulfilled.

A major achievement was having created the annual Nonviolence Parade and Rally the first Sunday of October in Youngstown, the sixth of which will take place this October. Their work also includes having registered other young people to vote and spearheading efforts to make the first week of October Nonviolence Week in the city, its schools and YSU.

Perhaps their crowning achievement took place July 11, 2013, when Gov. John Kasich signed into law a bill they sponsored that declared the first week of October as Nonviolence Week statewide.

Chatman, who went on the journey in 2012 and plans to do social-justice work, said the Sojourn experience has deepened her commitment toward making nonviolence “a way of life,” but observed that too many young people continue to be victims of violence. She also quoted King, saying that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Echoing that sentiment was Smith, who took the Sojourn journey in early 2013.

“I keep practicing [nonviolence] because it’s the way to go. It’s taught me leadership skills and has helped with my communication,” she said.

Also, Smith and Chatman each have served as master of ceremonies for the local nonviolence rallies.

Smith added she hopes more young people will see and tap into their abilities to be leaders and will learn to embrace the six principles of nonviolence, two of which state that love is more powerful than hate and that the end result is redemption and reconciliation.

Wells, a former middle-school social-studies teacher in the Youngstown City Schools, called it “a wonderful honor,” to have been recognized at the gala.

“It’s exciting for Sarina and Micah to be here and to see the power the Youngstown Sojourn students have in bringing this award about,” Wells said.

“The principles of nonviolence are always at the forefront of who I want to be personally and what I try to do professionally,” Steinberg said in his acceptance speech, adding that he has taken close to 8,000 high-school students on the journeys through the South.