Common Pleas Judge John Durkin was one of the speakers during Monday's Mahoning County MLK Jr. Day workshop. Photo by Sean Barron

YOUNGSTOWN — Kasandra Bankston believes that it’s not enough to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life without also exposing young people to many other lesser-known black people’s contributions to society.

“We need to get out there and talk about black history to our younger kids,” the Ursuline High School junior said. “Black history should be a class. It could be a whole course and be mandatory.”

Also mandatory should be for young people to embrace King’s dream partly by having such a course available in all of Youngstown’s schools — and seeing it as a beginning, not an end, to fulfilling such a commitment, Kasandra said during Monday morning’s 37th annual Community Workshop Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at First Presbyterian Church, 201 Wick Ave.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Committee of Mahoning County hosted the program, themed “Remembering What is Civil and Doing What is Right.”

The three-hour gathering examined ways to address and tackle institutionalized racism, which consists of practices, procedures and policies that have a disproportionately negative effect on minorities’ access to and quality of goods, services and opportunities.

The areas of focus were on youth concerns, education and criminal justice.

Panelists were Judge John Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court; Dr. Ben McGee, a former Youngstown City Schools superintendent who’s president of the Mahoning-Youngstown Community Action Partnership board of directors; and Bryant Youngblood, assistant director of the Academy of Urban Scholars High School.

Durkin, who presides over Mahoning County’s Drug Court, said a first step toward helping those with drug problems is to be more selective in the language too commonly used to label them. That can help remove a roadblock for those afflicted getting proper care.

“Words matter,” he said. “The words we use to describe substance abuse contributes to the stigma, creates barriers to their access to treatment, destroys a person’s dignity and affects outcomes. We must stop calling this an addiction; it’s a substance-abuse disorder.”

Durkin noted that he opposes Ohio Senate Bill 3 as it is written. The legislation, introduced last February, would reclassify minor drug possession from fourth- and fifth-degree felonies to misdemeanors. Supporters say it would get more people with substance-abuse problems into treatment, thereby reducing Ohio’s prison population. Durkin said, however, he believes it’s the very threat of a felony conviction that often forces defendants into treatment programs.

“We cannot and should not incarcerate our way out of this problem,” Durkin said, adding that a greater emphasis must be on alternatives to prison and avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach to treatment options.

Too many students in the Youngstown City Schools suffer from depression, suicidal thoughts and stress, much of it driven by a sense of hopelessness, Youngblood said. It’s imperative that greater resources and support services are in the schools, said Youngblood, who said his school fosters a family-friendly environment.

After the one-hour breakout sessions, attendees reconvened to share with one another solutions they believed would lead to improvements in the three areas.

Those in the education workshop suggested forming book clubs in the schools, supporting community-based learning, conducting more field trips relevant to the students, working toward a better balance between one’s home, community and school, helping more parents become mentors and participating in an initiative focused on healthy parent-child relationships.

Core ideas from the criminal-justice session also included stressing intervention on a case-by-case basis instead of incarceration, and doing more to treat underlying traumas that often lead to drug problems.

Suggested ideas from those who discussed youth concerns were confronting racism that remains in some schools, empowering students to better handle adversity and teaching them to use nonviolent means to fight against injustices they see.

Additional remarks were from the Rev. Kenneth L. Simon, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church; Jaladah Aslam, Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Committee co-convener; the Rev. Dr. Lewis W. Macklin II, pastor of Holy Trinity Missionary Baptist Church; and the Rev. Jim Ray, a retired Presbyterian minister and longtime social-justice activist.

Also at the gathering was information on part-time jobs as census takers, which will be May through July and pay $16 per hour. To register, go to www.2020census.gov/jobs.