CK Archives 2003

Date: January 20, 2003

Publication: The Virginian-Pilot

Author: Mike Knepler

Coalition turns activists’ legacies into a 64-day “season” of peace

What happens after today, the official holiday for celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.?

 For most people, the lofty thoughts about King will slide away until next January with return to everyday routines of work or school.

But not for all.

 A small but growing coalition of community groups is planning another opportunity to reflect on King’s legacy.

            This observance won’t be for just one day but for 64.

            Called the Season for Nonviolence, it begins January 30, the anniversary of the murder of India’s Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, and runs through April 4, the anniversary of King’s slaying in 1968.

            The first-day ceremony, at Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach, will feature an interfaith prayer service, readings from Gandhi and King, a dedication of a “Peace Pole” and personal pledges of nonviolence.

            Later events will include lectures on the “Wisdom of Gandhi,” a training course in mediation, public discussions about what constitutes  “ a just war” and a poetry slam nonviolent of course.

            The Season may conclude with an interfaith march for students that will include stops at a mosque, synagogue, a Methodist church and the Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza in Norfolk.

            The coalition may conclude with an interfaith march for students that will include stops at a mosque, synagogue, Methodist church and the Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza in Norfolk.

            The coalition, called the Hampton Roads Consortium for A Season for Nonviolence, also is asking businesses, houses of worship, schools and government and nonprofit agencies to display theme words each week, such as “courtesy,” “forgiveness” and “humility.”

            The connection between Gandhi and King goes far beyond the tragic fact that each was assassinated. King was a 21-year old seminary student in 1950 when began to study Gandhi’s non-violent concepts to free India from British oppression.

            King eventually brought Gandhi’s philosophies to the civil right movement, starting with the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott of 1955-56.

            Both men also were linked in their admiration of Henry David Thoreau, a New England writer who protested slavery and the Mexican war of 1846 by going to jail instead of paying his poll tax.

            Gandhi and King went on to espouse nonviolence as an active form of civil disobedience, not merely passive nonresistance to injustice.

            The concept of the Season was created in 1998 by Gandhi’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, and Arun’s wife Sunanda, founders of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in Memphis, Tenn.

            The Season was brought to Hampton Roads three years ago by Herta Okonkwo, a German-language teacher and founder of a nonviolence club at Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach. Her lifelong commitment to nonviolence began as a child in World War II Germany when she began thinking about alternatives to violence.

            Consortium members include clubs of college and high school students and organizations of peace and human rights activists, Asian Indians, blacks, Jews and Buddhists.

            While the consortium promotes nonviolent principles, members are not of one mind on issues of war and peace, especially when it comes to U.S. policy toward Iraq.

            “Our message and vision is much more broad,” said Kelly Jackson, consortium coordinator and advisor to the Campus Kaleidoscope human rights club at Virginia Wesleyan College.

            The Season, she said, wants to show “ that every person can move the world in the direction of peace through nonviolent choices and actions.

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Date: February 9, 2003

Publication: The Beacon

Author: Carole O’keeffe

Celebrants kick off Season for Nonviolence with vigil

          Lynnhaven- They gathered under a dark, weepy sky to pray for peace as war loomed.

            About 50 people made their quiet stand Jan. 30, gathering under a makeshift tent at Mount Trashmore on the anniversary of the 1948 assassination of Mahatma Gandhi to launch the 2003 Season of Nonviolence.

            Both the Indian leader and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had hopes for a peaceful world. King died, also by assassination, more than two decades later, April 4, 1968. That 64-day span between their deaths was named Season for Nonviolence by descendants of Gandhi in 1998.

            Each of year since, people with similar visions have calling attention to the nonviolent way of life for individuals, families, communities and nations.

            Despite darkness, downpours and a biting wind observers from several religious communities prayed and read passages from nonviolent literature during the candlelight vigil and interfaith prayer service.

            Linda Douglas, facilitator for the Hampton Roads Network for Nonviolence, spearheaded the season’s local opening. She is the program director for the YWCA’s Women in Crisis Domestic Violence Program.

            “We had hoped for between 50 and 75, and to have about 50 people show up in the pouring rain and cold was great,” she said.

            Gathered as tightly as possible under the tarpaulin or under umbrellas, the congregants listened as Douglas described a peace pole inscribed in four languages; English, Arabic, Hebrew and Hindi, that will be placed in a garden at the Trashmore Park. An interdenominational, nonviolence youth group, Voices that Challenge, raised the money for the 6-foot pole, which reads “May Peace Prevail on Earth.”

            Barbra Hardcastle, 22, attended to get involved in the movement. She is organizing a March 3 theatrical reading. Readings like it will happen simultaneously “all over the world in protest of the war against Iraq,” the Pembroke Meadows resident said.

            Season for Nonviolence was founded before the recent mobilization of the United States against Iraq, said Kelly Jackson, coordinator for the Hampton Roads Consortium, Season for Nonviolence.

            “We are not a pacifist antiwar organization. We come together to give people an opportunity to be less violent through our daily personal choices and actions,” Jackson said.

            The consortium was formed last fall to coordinate efforts by various groups celebrating Season for Nonviolence.

            “Our purpose is to educate the Hampton Roads community in the principles of nonviolent living,” and increase participation in Season for Nonviolence locally,” she said.

            The Rev. Thomas Caroluzza’s prayer asked for help in our homes cities, nation and in this world.”

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Date: March 31, 2003

Publication: The Catholic Virginian

Author: Frank Callahan

Jesuit Fr. John Dear to speak on peace

            Father John Dear, a Jesuit who once served as director of Sacred Heart Center, a ministry to residents of a low-income neighborhood in the vicinity of Sacred Heart Church in South Richmond, is bringing a message of peace and non-violence to South Hampton Roads.

            He will speak on “The Road to Peace: Walking the Path of Non-Violence” Thursday, April 1, at 7p.m. at Virginia Wesleyan College’s Boyd Dining Center.

            Part of Tidewater Sowers of Justice’s 2002-2003 Calendar of Educational Events and Opportunities, the Hampton Roads Network for Non-Violence is co-sponsoring his appearance.

            Also, it comes near the end of The Season of Non-Violence, annual South Hampton Roads interfaith prayer vigil. The season runs from Jan. 30, the anniversary of the assassination of the Mohandas Gandhi, to April 4, the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

            Discussing the spirituality and practice of the active nonviolence, Father Dear will draw on his own experience on opposing war, working in New York City as a chaplin at Ground Zero, as one of the Red Cross coordinators for chaplains after 9/11 and as pastor of several churches in the desert of New Mexico. He also led a delegation of Nobel Peace Prize winners to Iraq.

            Father Dear will look at the non-violence of Jesus, show why the Just War Theory is no longer applicable and outline the basic ingredients of the life of Christian non-violence.

            He has traveled the war zones of the world and has been arrested over 75 times in acts of non-violent civil disobedience in opposition to war and nuclear weapons.

            He is the author and editor of 20 books on peace and non-violence, including “Living Peace,” “Jesus the Rebel.” “Mohandas Gandhi” and “Mary of Nazareth, Prophet of Peace.”