National News Advisory
From Midwest mailboxes to Middle East maelstrom,
violence prevention is message young travelers
are bringing cross country this Memorial Day
Teach-ins, dialogue enliven 'Hands in Healing™' pilgrimages linking
L.A., Laramie, Ground Zero, National Cathedral, Oklahoma City plus 10
sites
Interview opportunities in New York, D.C. and Atlanta posted below;
strong pre-Memorial Day feature.
They know about violence:
-- a young father of three who as an L.A. barrio homeboy saw his brother
brutally shot in senseless gang activity;
-- a South African computer expert whose boyhood was marked by running
from armed soldiers under apartheid;
-- a future elementary school teacher mending from encounters with urban
violence following a favorite cousin's death;
-- an openly gay man who, just out of college, calls for widening
education for the prevention of hate crimes.
These and eight other articulate peers ranging in age from 17 to 27 are
voicing their experiences, remembering lives lost, and teaching the
prevention of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, hate
crimes, gang activity, gun violence, elder abuse and terrorism along a
48-day, 15-city itinerary that began in Los Angeles on April 19 -- the
anniversary of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing.
En route to dialogue with urban high-schoolers in Chicago, Muslim
Americans in Detroit (May 10), and morgue chaplains at Ground Zero (May
17), they have prayed with friends of Matthew Shepard and visited the
area where he was left to die; in Omaha and Las Vegas, they have
exchanged stories with other survivors of violent aggression and abuse.
On Memorial Day weekend, the travelers will bring their concerns and
perspectives to the 11am principal Sunday service (May 26) at Washington
National Cathedral, where Bishop Jon Bruno of the Episcopal Diocese of
Los Angeles, himself a former police officer and urban parish priest,
will preach a homily affirming hope and healing in the aftermath of
violence that has escalated in this nation in recent years, and from
which there is much loss to mourn.
The travelers, all of whom are parishioners of Episcopal congregations
in the Diocese of Los Angeles, also plan to pay a Memorial Day visit to
Arlington National Cemetery, the Vietnam Memorial and other sites of
remembrance before embarking May 28 on a return-route that will bring
them to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta, to Memphis's civil
rights center surrounding the Lorraine Motel, to the memorial sites in
Oklahoma City, and to the Episcopal Church's Navajoland Area Mission.
More detailed information about the itinerary and the wider initiative,
titled "Hands in Healing: Reaching Peace for Youth and Cities," is
posted on this web site:
Photos and
biographical sketches of the travelers
The Initiative
The Itinerary
Travelogue - From cities already visited
Television and print interview opportunities include:
IN NEW YORK: Friday morning, May 17; Monday morning, May 20; weekend
(May 18-19) by appointment.
IN WASHINGTON: Friday morning, May 24; Saturday, May 25; following the
National Cathedral service on Sunday, May 26; Monday (Memorial Day), May
27.
IN ATLANTA and other locations by appointment.
CONTACT: Robert Williams, communications director, mobile phone
along itinerary: 323.896.2112;
e-mail: handsinhealing@msn.com;
or in Los Angeles, Janet Kawamoto, 213.482.2040, ext. 225. |