WHO WE ARE
We are six people who met in the 1980s at The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia. The King Center was founded by Coretta Scott King shortly after her husband’s death in April of 1968. Never intended as a static memorial, the center was created as a living testament to the philosophy of nonviolence which animated and defined his life. Mrs. King’s vision extended Dr. King’s legacy by continuing his work through teaching that nonviolence is a way of life as well as a strategy for social change.
One of its programs was the Scholars Internship in which college and graduate students studied Kingian nonviolence while receiving on-the-job training in a King Center program, government office or social service organization. Five of us were Scholar-Interns, although in different years. For years during the decade that followed the first celebration of the federal King Holiday in 1986, we all returned to the King Center to serve as youth trainers, for high school and college students, at King Center’s nonviolence workshops. The sixth, Lili Baxter, was the program director and our mentor.
In her posthumous memoir, My Life, My Love, My Legacy, Coretta Scott King wrote, “Because of so many ongoing social ills and injustices, another movement is inevitable. It is interesting how a movement is triggered at a certain moment in history. I can’t help but believe that at some time in the not-too-distant future, there is going to be another movement to change these systemic conditions of poverty, injustice and violence in people’s lives. That is where we’ve got to go, and it’s going to be a struggle. When that struggle comes those who have been trained in Kingian nonviolence will be ready.”
We are close friends, who come from and live in different parts of the country and work in different professions. Each of us was transformed by our experience at the King Center and, in our personal and professional lives, we continue to be guided by nonviolence as a way of life and strategy for social change.
We are inspired by the young activists driving today’s emerging movement and by our own children and grandchildren. We humbly, want to share with them some of what we began learning when we were young and worked to change our communities and the world. We still do and believe it can be done.
When that struggle comes, those who have been trained in Kingian nonviolence will be ready!
LILI BAXTER (Liliane Kshensky Baxter) is a teacher and trainer who has led hundreds of workshops and seminars on the history and application of nonviolence for the King Center (Atlanta, Georgia) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (US headquarters in New York; global headquarters in the Netherlands). She holds a PhD from Emory University and is Director Emerita of the Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education, The Breman Museum, Atlanta. Lili is an Elder and Senior Educator for Nonviolence365, a program created by Dr. Bernice A. King, President and CEO of the King Center. The print and video educational materials Lili has developed are used throughout the world.
CARY CLACK is a San Antonio Express-News Columnist and Editorial Board member, and the former District Director for Congressman Joaquin Castro. He was a Scholar-Intern in the summer of 1984 where he worked under the King Center’s Communications Director, Steve Klein.
ROSE CLARK HALLFORD first interned at the Martin Luther King Center while attending Antioch School of Law. She was trained in nonviolent conflict resolution at the King Center as well as civil rights organizing. Rose has spent the last 40 years advocating for poor and black people in Alabama as well as the southeastern United States.
CHIP HENRY studied politics, art and the Chinese language, and earned an MPA from Jackson State University. He is a democratic socialist, nonviolence trainer and served as a union organizer (ILGWU) before his career as a Buyer/Contracting Officer/Specifications Analyst for the City of Atlanta. He organized a nonprofit affordable housing effort and served on Atlanta’s Gentrification Task Force. Chip was a dedicated baseball coach for his sons, advocate for students with disabilities, and taught math and science at an alternative school in Atlanta.
MARY McLAUGHLIN has been a social worker for 31 years. She was a Scholar-Intern in the summer of 1988 while a graduate student at Boston College School of Social Work. Her career has focused on family violence, child abuse and neglect prevention and treatment, and teaching the next generation of social workers at the Georgia State University School of Social Work. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
DEBRA WILLIAMS is an Executive Editor for an global educational publisher, and lives New York City. After the Scholar-Internship program in 1982 and the following summer in India with the Gandhi Peace Foundation, she later returned to her native Atlanta to organize and teach workshops on Kingian nonviolence, and volunteer for the King Federal Holiday Commission. Debra is active in the community garden movement in lower Manhattan, supports NYC public education, and volunteers for The Tibet Center.