Gegory Freeman: Johnny Appleseed Of Nonviolence Planted Lasting Legacy. 3/14/2000

Headline: JOHNNY APPLESEED OF NONVIOLENCE PLANTED LASTING LEGACY
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tue., Mar., 14, 2000
Section: METRO, Page: B1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

Robert Cunningham
  When I first met Robert Cunningham, several years ago, he was clearly a man who was about something.
Some folks aren't about anything. They talk a lot but don't follow up with action.
  Cunningham was different. He scoffed at those who thought there was no hope for troubled youths.
  He knew he could make a difference.

Cunningham, 60, died last week of a heart attack. Like his idol, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he died much too young.

I first met him at Carver Elementary Community Education Center. Cunningham was working with youngsters there, teaching them King's beliefs.
   Cunningham believed strongly in King and his belief in nonviolence. He thought there was power in King's message, and that it could help keep youngsters out of trouble and out of gangs.
   He believed so strongly in the concept that he founded an organization called Organized Men Against Juvenile Crime, which helped teach youngsters how to resolve conflicts nonviolently.
   At Carver, he talked to youngsters about avoiding potentially violent situations. He told them there was nothing "unmanly" about refusing to fight. He brought conflict resolution to their level, and they got it, nodding their heads, the lights going on.
   He planted the seed of nonviolence at Carver.

Over the years, he became the Johnny Appleseed of nonviolence at all 109 St. Louis public schools. And while he got a small grant at one point to help cover expenses, most of his visits were as a volunteer.
   "He might talk to a classroom, or speak in a session in the auditorium, or work one on one with a student, wherever the principal thought he was needed most, " said Jean Player, Carver's director of volunteer services. "He had a tremendous effect on the students he worked with."
   On Monday, second-graders at Peabody School talked to teachers and others about Cunningham. One student wanted to plant a tree to honor him. Another suggested that the students write a journal of what they had learned from him. One said he taught the students to "keep our eyes on the prize."
   Cunningham pushed King's nonviolent message wherever he went, in the schools, at church, at the Mathews-Dickey Boys' Club, or working with youngsters through the juvenile courts.
   He sometimes was the only positive male role model for many of the young people he worked with.

He and I talked several times about his belief of how much better off society would be -- not to mention how much tax money would be saved -- by investing time and funds at the front end to keep young people out of jail rather than spending exorbitant amounts of money later to keep them locked up.
"He would be so disappointed whenever another jail went up, " said his daughter, Tamika Armstead. "He thought it made more sense to build nonviolent men and women than to build jails."

Cunningham took pride in his successes. Last year, he introduced me to Byron Williams. Williams had gotten into trouble, dabbled in gang activity and broken into homes. He was sent to juvenile detention and let out on one condition: that he participate in a six-month anti-violence program operated by Cunningham's group.
Williams did and saw the light, learning to stay away from the bad crowd. Williams, who had dropped out of high school, went back to school and got a general equivalency diploma. When we met, he had just graduated from the DeVry Institute of Technology in Kansas City with an associate of applied science degree in electronics.
Williams was just one out of many whose lives Cunningham touched.

In the words of his daughter, Armstead: "He was the ultimate measure of a man."
I couldn't argue with that.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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