YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past organization is preparing to host a series of events and gatherings as part of Ohio Nonviolence Week.

Kicking off the week will be the 14th annual Nonviolence Parade and Rally, which gets underway at 3 p.m. Sunday at Wood Street and Wick Avenue in downtown Youngstown. Participants will march to the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre for a rally and program.

A “Mingle with Minni” gathering is set 5 to 8 p.m. Oct. 7 at Flambeau’s Live, 2308 Market St., on the South Side, to meet Miinnijean Brown Trickey, one of nine black students who, in September 1957, integrated the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Brown Trickey, 83, is a civil rights, peace and social activist. The fundraiser dinner is $25 per person.

The Tyler History Center, 325 W. Federal St., downtown, will be the site of the Simeon Booker Award for Courage gathering at 7 p.m. Oct. 8. The event is named in honor of the late Booker, who became the Washington Post’s first black reporter and was known for his coverage of the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi.

The national Booker Award will go to former Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, who also served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. In that capacity, he successfully prosecuted Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas E. Blanton Jr., two of four Ku Klux Klan members who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963, in Birmingham, killing four girls.

In addition, Jones indicted Eric Rudolph, the domestic terrorist convicted of the July 1996 bombing in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics. The blast killed one woman and injured about 100 spectators.

The local award will be given posthumously to Victoria M. Allen, an ardent community activist who dedicated herself to helping children, elderly people and families, as well as victims of violent crimes. Before she died Sept. 21, 2021, at age 49, Allen received the 2021 Distinguished Civilian Leadership Award from Ohio Attorney General David Yost.

The event is free, but the reception is $35 per person.

“Speak Your Peace,” a free, spoken-word gathering for students in grades six to 12, is set for 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 9 at First Presbyterian Church of Youngstown, 201 Wick Ave.

Brown Trickey also will host a “Lunch & Learn” event at noon Oct. 10 at the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown, 505 Gypsy Lane, on the North Side. The gathering is free, though those interested in attending are asked to call the center at 330-746-3251 to register.

Also Oct. 10, a reception is set for awardees of an art and poetry contest 5 to 7 p.m. at the main branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County on Wick Avenue.

At noon Oct. 11, a panel discussion based on a five-day reading challenge on racism will take place at the YWCA of Youngstown, 25 W. Rayen Ave., and will include a light lunch. To register — and to sign up to receive daily readings — go to www.ohiononviolenceweek.org.

In addition, a “Chalk the Walk” challenge will be ongoing through Nonviolence Week. Participants are encouraged to use chalk to write messages related to nonviolence, love and peace on their sidewalks.