Center City marchers demand end to Phila. school violence

About 250 people marched through Center City this afternoon, demanding an end to violence in the Philadelphia schools.

Old and young, male and female, black, white, brown, and Asian, they staged a boisterous traffic-stopping trek to celebrate and emulate the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday was celebrated in Philadelphia and around the country today.

"If Dr. King had a choice of where he would be, he would be right here with you," the Rev. LeRoi Simmons told the crowd, as people gathered outside the Philadelphia School District offices on North Broad Street, from there marching to the Arch Street Methodist Church.

Dr. King was moved to action "by the injustice he saw, by the injustice you see," Simmons said.

On Dec. 3, about 30 Asian students were attacked by groups of mostly African American classmates at South Philadelphia High School.

The assaults sent seven students to hospitals and sparked a boycott by about 50 Asian students.

Since then, other schools and other ethnic communities have decried the violence they experienced, and today's march was a call for it to end for all people.

Earlier today at South Philadelphia High School, more than 120 people attended a midmorning "Gathering of Unity." They reflected on Dr. King's work and words and pledged to strive for peaceful change.

Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, criticized for responding slowly to the December attack, told the young people that she knew their pain.

To the Asian students, she said, "I really do understand what it feels like when people make you feel like you're not welcome," because she had attended a segregated school where black students were cursed and spat upon.

"My heart aches for you," she said.

To the African American students, she said, she understood the frustration of being "painted by the media and the larger community, by some not all, as thugs, based on what you look like."

She told the crowd, "We want to put this painful episode behind us. We really do. But we really want to learn from what happened on Dec. 3."

Some students took part in workshops today centered on cultural differences, self-expression, discrimination and stereotypes.

"Things have calmed down a little, but I still sense a little bit of hatred in the air," said Amy Seng, a senior who attended the gathering. She described the changes at the school as "slow, but better than nothing."

The gathering drew together people of every stripe, color and creed. Christian pastors. A Buddhist monk. Chinatown leaders. A moderator whose mother hailed from Osaka, Japan, and whose father graduated from the Tuskegee Institute. Participants donned blue ribbons, which they deemed the color of unity.