By ANTHONY SUSZCZYNSKI

Correspondent

YOUNGSTOWN — The ninth annual Nonviolence Parade and Rally took place Sunday, marking the beginning of Nonviolence Week in Ohio.

Nonviolence Week began in 2010 when students in the Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past group requested it. The statewide week became law in 2013, after they asked former Mahoning Valley state Sen. Joe Schiavoni to introduce Ohio’s Nonviolence Week bill, passed into law in 2013 when then-Gov. John Kasich signed it.

Members of the community marched from the intersection of Wood Street and Wick Avenue to the Covelli Centre where a rally followed.

Speakers included Minnijean Brown-Trickey, one of the “Little Rock Nine,” a group of nine students who in 1957 enrolled in Central High School, an all-white school in Little Rock, Ark. The governor called in the Arkansas National Guard in an effort to block the students from attending the school, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops in to escort the students. The tumultuous time was a test of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education, that made segregated schools unconstitutional.

Brown-Trickey, who has attended the event in eight out of the last nine years, travels the country to speak about minority rights and the environment.

“The mission and the message of today’s event is so important for young Ohioans and for all Ohioans to recognize — the real power that exists in nonviolence,” said Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. “Some people confuse nonviolence with weakness, but it’s the furthest thing from it.”

Youngstown State University President Jim Tressel and Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown spoke.

Events for Nonviolence Week will continue through Saturday. Brown-Trickey will be available 6 p.m. today at Flambeau’s Live on Market Street. Money raised at the event will help fund the Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past group’s annual 10-day trip for high school students to historical civil rights locations such as Atlanta, Birmingham, Little Rock and Memphis.

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