Report by Jeffrey Lott // Photos by MONIQUE HARMON/WITN-22

Our sixth annual March for a Culture of Peace on Sept. 29 concluded with a public call for Nonviolent Wilmington—nearly two years after John was here for the Pacem in Terris anniversary. Our event was the finale of another successful Peace Week Delaware, which consisted of more than 100 events statewide.

The Wilmington News-Journal reported on the march and the Nonviolent Wilmington meeting that followed. https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2019/09/29/wilmington-residents-march/3811797002/https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2019/09/29/wilmington-residents-march/3811797002/

Other speakers included Hanifa Shabazz, the president of the Wilmington City Council, Unitarian-Universalist minister Paula Maiorano, and the Rev. Dr. Lawrence Livingston, senior pastor of Mother African Union Church, the oldest independent African American congregation in the nation. (Yes, right here in Wilmington, founded by Rev. Peter Spencer in 1813.) Also in the audience were a state representative, the county executive, and the former state secretary of health and human services.

Our own videographer Tom Davis recorded this one-minute clip of the march and the meeting, which was held in the historic Wilmington Friends Meeting House. In my remarks I recalled the Quaker abolitionist, Thomas Garrett (1789-1871), who was a member of the Wilmington Meeting and worked for decades (including with Harriet Tubman) on the Underground Railroad. The Abolitionists worked to realize the “impossible idea” of a free nation without chattel slavery—and they succeeded. This is what I often talk about when someone questions whether a nonviolent city is even possible.

At the end of the meeting, we received about 40 written commitments to work on Nonviolent Wilmington. It’s time to give these folks and others already on our list something to do!

We're eager to start some kind training with these new volunteers (and ourselves), and I think that the Engaging Nonviolence workshops based on the new book may be just the thing. We might also explore nonviolence organizing through one of your trainings—either in person or online.