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The fight continues say attendees of Black History Month’s Feast of Salads
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown urged attendees at Saturday’s Black History Month’s Feast of Salads to pass their personal “black history” on to their children and the young people in the community.
“If we don’t share these family stories, they will get lost,” said Brown, who followed his own admonition by telling the audience that his father was in and out of prison most of his life.
“I was determined to stop that cycle. That’s part of my black history,” said the mayor, who also noted the success of other family members, one of whom served in the Korean War and worked for the U.S. Postal Service and another who kept “chugging away” at St. Elizabeth Hospital.
“I have to make sure I’m not the last to graduate from college. What path will you pave?” the mayor asked his audience.
“We’re not there yet. But one time I’d like to go back to was when there was love among people; when we weren’t afraid to knock on a neighbor’s door to borrow a cup of sugar,” he said.
Interviewed before the event, Annie Hall of Youngstown, said she named the event “Feast of Salads” because the South Carolina sharecropper family in which she grew up basically ate whatever grew in their large garden.
“We couldn’t afford meat. Mom had a few chickens, and every Friday we had a fish-fry of catfish and bass or whatever was caught. We also had corn bread. Whatever was left over was breakfast,” said Hall, Youngstown community activist and head of East Side Crime Watch, host of the Black History Month event, which took place from 3 to 7 p.m. in Wick Park Pavilion.
Several guests at the Feast of Salads gave their views and feelings about Black History Month.
Keith Ira Mohammed, who was an altar boy at St. Patrick Church and admitted his parents gave him an attention-getting name, said Black History Month is a time to acknowledge and honor black people, including some local residents who have made contributions.
“Blacks need to be more aware of their history and known for more positive things than crime and drug-dealing,” he said.
“Black History Month is very important because most of us are getting older, and we need to pass on things we didn’t get credit for and so everybody can better realize the struggle that has taken place,” said Betty Crafter-Royal, “Queen Mom” of the String of Pearls Red Hat Society.
Cynthia Johnson of Youngstown, whose parents were raised in Alabama, doesn’t believe black people have all the freedoms that Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned.
”It is a continuing fight,” she said.