Nonviolence Week Kicks Off Oct. 4 with Parade, Rally

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The city plans to kick off Nonviolence Week in Ohio with a parade and rally on Sunday Oct. 4.

The event will start at 3 p.m. with a parade that begins at the intersection of Wood Street and Wick Avenue and proceed through downtown to the Covelli Centre. The rally will immediately follow the parade.

Participants will include Minijean Brown, one of the Little Rock Nine, Jimmy Webb, who marched with U.S. Rep. John Lewis in Selma, Ala. on “Bloody Sunday,” Mayor John McNally, State Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D- Canfield, Sojourn to the Past students, East High marching band and ROTC, Boys and Girls Club drummers as well as students from Youngstown schools, YSU and Fitch High School. Awards will be given for the best float and the best banner that illustrate the theme of “Peace” and “Nonviolence” as well as the “best in show”.

Judges for the parade are David Lee Morgan and Gianna Centofanti. Winners for the nonviolence art contest will be announced. The judges for the art contest are Sue Anzelloti Ray and Betsy Ford.

Numerous activities are planned for the week. They include:

• At 11:30 a.m. Oct. 6 at the Jewish Community Center, Jeff Steinberg, director of Sojourn to the Past from San Mateo, Calif., and Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine, will speak at a diversity luncheon. The public is invited but must call the Jewish Community Center for reservations.
• At 7 p.m. Oct. 7, Minijean Brown Trickey, will speak in the Chestnut Room at YSU after the showing of her film “Journey From Little Rock”.  She will also speak on Wednesday morning in McKay Auditorium on the YSU campus. The public is invited to attend.
• At 7 p.m. Oct. 7 Simeon Wright, cousin of Emmett Till, and FBI agent Dale Killinger, who reopened the Emmett Till case in 2004, will speak at the Tyler Historical Center.  Till was kidnapped and murdered sixty years ago. The public is invited.
• On Oct. 8 and 9, area youth will participate in a retreat at Camp Koinonia in Geneva, sponsored by Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past and CIRV. Minnijean Brown Trickey, Jimmy Webb and Ken Mason from Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta will be facilitators.

Nonviolence Week has been celebrated in the Mahoning Valley since 2010. The first parade and rally was held in 2011 and was the idea of Sojourn student, Janae Ward.

At the request of Sojourn students, Schiavoni introduced the “Nonviolence Week in Ohio” bill in the Ohio Senate, which was signed into law by Gov. John Kasich in 2013.

Organizers of the event are the Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation, the city of Youngstown, Youngstown City Schools, the Youngstown State University Office of Student Diversity Activities, the Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Committee, the YWCA and the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence.

Pictured: Participants in the 2012 nonviolence parade.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.