DEAR EDITOR:

In a time when politics feels like blood sport rather than public service, two recent events in the Youngstown area offered something rare: Hope.

On Sunday, Feb. 22, the Mahoning Valley Freedom Fighters (MVFF), hosted a Congressional Candidate Forum for the OH-6 race at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Youngstown.

Four Democratic candidates showed up. They answered hard questions, listened respectfully, and treated those in attendance like adults capable of nuance and serious thought.

Then, on Sunday, March 1, in that same space, MVFF hosted a workshop on nonviolence led by Penny Wells and Rev. J.P. Robles of Sojourn to the Past. It was not a dry history lesson. It was a living reminder of what courage and conscience look like, in the frame of nonviolence.

During the workshop a remarkable Sojourn member who has visited the Edmund Pettus Bridge, met the late Rep. John Lewis, and studied the Civil Rights Movement shared her insights. She spoke about Lewis’s commitment to nonviolence in the face of arrest, beatings, and relentless hatred, and about how his idea of “Good Trouble” still applies to the injustices we see today, and particularly, in her own life. She stated, simply, that being part of Sojourn and meeting John Lewis changed the course of her life.

The themes of the evening were simple but demanding:

Love instead of hate. Non-violence instead of retaliation. Doing the right thing even when the cost is high.

In a political climate driven by outrage and soundbites, these two events stood out as examples of what civic life can be when people of good will come together; listening, learning and taking responsibility for their community.

Thank you to the Mahoning Valley Freedom Fighters for raising the level of public discourse, to Sojourn to the Past for keeping the legacy of John Lewis, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement alive in our young people, and to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Youngstown for opening its doors to this work. This is the kind of politics and moral clarity we need much more of.

JOHN SHARTLE

Canfield