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King Center Nonviolence Training Program Prepares Youth

King Center President and C.E.O. Isaac Newton Farris, Jr. addresses the Nonviolence 'Training of      Trainers’ Workshop at The Martin Luther King, Jr. High School at Lithonia, GA., Workshop leader   Dr. Bernard LaFayette sits next to Mr. Farris.

ATLANTA… The King Center, in partnership with LaFayette & Associates,   conducted a “Nonviolence Training of Trainers” program for Atlanta metro high school students at the Martin Luther King, Jr. High School in Lithonia, Georgia on Saturday, April 25, 2009. The 1-day program was part of the core nonviolence education initiative central to The King Center’s mission.

The program was the continuation of a series of ‘Kingian’ nonviolence training workshops the King Center has been conducting, explained Mr. Isaac Newton Farris, Jr., President & C.E.O. of The King Center. “We are excited to be moving forward with our nonviolence training initiative,” said Mr. Farris, in announcing the workshop. “This program has the potential to empower thousands of young people to apply Martin Luther King, Jr.’s principles and techniques of nonviolent conflict reconciliation and social change.”

On April 4, 2008, The King Center provided orientation training in the basic principles of nonviolence for more than 2,000 high school and college students at the 40th Anniversary Youth Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church Horizon Sanctuary. Cosponsors of the program included The King Center; Georgia State Department of Social Work; Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C.) and The Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, University of Rhode Island.

Mr. Farris said that the goals of the April 25th training included helping high school students with leadership skills to: understand how Kingian nonviolence produced the changes they benefit from today; recognize types and levels of conflict and violence so they can tailor strategies for addressing them; and learn Dr. King’s methods of conflict-reconciliation.

Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr., Distinguished Senior Scholar in Residence and Professor at Emory University, and a former Senior Scholar in Residence at The King Center, serves as the lead trainer of the program. He is assisted by Captain (retired) Charles L. Alphin, Sr, former Director of Education and Training at The King Center. Kingian Nonviolence training workshops have been conducted across the United States and in Cuba, Mexico, Hungary, Palestine, Israel, Haiti, Colombia, South Africa, Nigeria and other nations.

Since The King Center was founded in 1968, nonviolence training workshops, conferences and educational programs based on his teachings have benefited thousands of people from all walks of life across the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries. Distinguished guest faculty over the years have included Ambassador Andrew Young, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan, United Farmworkers President Cesar Chavez and other luminaries. Beneficiaries of the training have included: teachers; students of all ages, including pre-schoolers; law enforcement personnel; union leaders and members; gangs; and poll-watchers/monitors in South Africa’s first free elections.

"Our training program is unique in that it is exclusively rooted in Dr. King's teachings,” explained Dr. LaFayette. “We are training trainers who will be certified to educate many thousands more of their peers in Dr. King's philosophy and strategies."