Sunday, February 26, 2017
By Sean Barron
YOUNGSTOWN
Diane Gonda fondly recalled how much humor she found during a meal while planning an event at Youngstown State University.
“We laughed the whole time; he was so funny,” said Gonda, a former YSU adjunct professor who was referring to the Rev. James W. Webb II, a longtime civil-rights activist who died Monday in Washington state from kidney failure at age 68.
The occasion also marked the first time he had heard of and tried homemade wedding soup, which is popular in this area, Gonda remembered.
Gonda was among those who shared fond memories of the Rev. Mr. Webb, affectionately known as “Jimmy,” during a gathering Saturday afternoon at Flambeau’s Caribbean Restaurant, 2308 Market St., on the South Side.
Hosting the informal event was Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past.
Attendees saw a video of Mr. Webb as a 16-year-old who in early 1965 led a group of young people to the Dallas County Courthouse during a peaceful march in Selma, Ala., amid racial unrest, and was confronted by an angry white deputy sheriff named L.C. Crocker. As a child, Mr. Webb had received training in the practice of nonviolence, and he participated in the famous Selma-to-Montgomery march in March 1965.
At one point, he calmly says to the sheriff, “Sir, are you saying that if I have a quarter and I’m black and you have a quarter and you’re white, then my quarter isn’t worth as much as your quarter?”
In recent years, Mr. Webb made several visits to Youngstown during Nonviolence Week, which is the first week of October, and preached on a few occasions at Holy Trinity Missionary Baptist Church as well as for a Martin Luther King Jr. service at Union Baptist Church.
Sarina Chatman, a YSU junior who’s studying interpersonal communications, met Mr. Webb in 2012, when she went on Sojourn to the Past, a traveling American history journey through the Deep South in which participants meet people who were on the front lines of the civil-rights movement and apply the lessons of that struggle to better their lives and communities.
“I learned a lot from him,” said Chatman, who came up with the idea for the Saturday gathering.
A fond memory for Chatman was when she introduced Mr. Webb during a Martin Luther King Jr. workshop and gave him a quarter, she continued.
“Every kid from Youngstown who went on Sojourn was [positively] affected by Jimmy,” said Penny Wells, Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past’s executive director. “He could talk and relate; he was comfortable in any setting and not one to feel sorry for himself.”
Receiving an encouraging thumbs-up from Mr. Webb during a Nonviolence Parade and Rally a few years ago is embedded in the mind and heart of Emma Myers, a junior at Trumbull Career and Technical Center in Warren. She also went on STTP.
Also happy with having spent time with Mr. Webb was Emma’s grandmother, Karen Myers.
Sandra Murphy, who co-owns Flambeau’s, said that despite having never met the veteran activist, she was deeply moved by his accomplishments and commitment to nonviolence. Befittingly, she gave quarters to everyone at the event.
“I’m standing here because of him, too,” she said.