YOUNGSTOWN -- The tears began to flow before Sandra Murphy could finish sharing a memory.
"It was an honor; it was a pleasure," an emotional Murphy, who runs Flambeau's Live in Youngstown, said.
Murphy was referring to the only time she stayed at the Selma, Alabama, home of the late Jo Ann Bland, a powerhouse civil rights icon, educator and social-justice advocate who has visited the Mahoning Valley on numerous occasions, especially during Nonviolence Week in the first week of October.
Hers was among the fond memories that community leaders and others shared during a special celebration of life program in Bland's honor Sunday afternoon at Glenwood Grounds Cafe, 2906 Glenwood Ave., on the South Side.
Hosting the somber but often uplifting and humorous program was Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, as well as Anita Davis, Youngstown City Council president.
Bland, who was among the estimated 600 peaceful demonstrators who were attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965, a day infamously known as "Bloody Sunday," died Feb. 19 from lung cancer. She was 72.
In addition to speaking to classes of Youngstown City School students about her foray into the civil rights movement and the importance of preserving and exercising one's right to vote, Bland met many Sojourn to the Past groups of high school students, teachers and others during their stops in Selma over the years. She often spoke with the young people and adults in front of Brown's Chapel, the iconic Romanesque-style church in Selma where the marchers gathered.
For her nonviolent civil rights activities, Bland, who was one of seven black students to integrate A.G. Parish High School in Selma, racked up at least 13 documented arrests by the time she was 11. When she was 8, the young Bland accompanied her grandmother, Sylvia Johnson, to meetings that Amelia Boynton Robinson of the Dallas County Voters League led; then Bland became part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a major civil rights organization during the 1960s.
Later, Bland served in the U.S. Army and attended the College of Staten Island in New York City, where she earned a bachelor's of arts degree before returning to her native city in 1989. Soon after, she co-founded the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute.
In 2007, the civil rights leader founded Journeys of the Soul, a tour agency that, largely through her storytelling and preservation efforts, worked to ensure visitors worldwide were taught about the civil rights movement and Selma's large role in it.
About five years ago, Bland and Kimberly Smitherman, a fellow Selma activist, bought parcels adjacent to Brown's Chapel where activists and marchers had gathered on "Bloody Sunday." The property became known as Foot Soldiers Park, which fulfilled her vision and long-held desire to honor and memorialize those who were part of the movement, as well as to reimagine Selma's historical significance.
For her yearslong work, Bland received the Robert O. Cooper Peace and Justice Fellowship on April 10, 2014, at Southern Methodist University near Dallas. Last year at the Tyler History Center in Youngstown, she was the recipient of the national Simeon Booker Award for Courage named after Booker, who was the Washington Post's first black reporter and who broke the story about the Aug. 28, 1955, lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. The awards are distributed during Nonviolence Week each year to someone who exhibits unusual courage in bringing about positive change.
The local Booker Award winners were the Rev. Gary Koerth and his wife, Cindy Koerth, who run Glenwood Grounds Cafe.
During Sunday's remembrance program, those who shared memories of Bland included Gary Koerth, who praised Bland for her strength combined with "an incredible loving heart." One particular recollection of Bland walking past him and his wife during the Booker Awards ceremony caused him to tear up.
"She said, 'I love you guys,'" an emotional Koerth said.
Additional fond shared memories came from Lil Snider, a Chaney High School senior, who said that while on the Sojourn journeys, Bland at times could seem tough on the outside but also possessed a sense of humor. Bland also took under her wing a student who initially had a negative attitude, Snider remembered.
Diane Gonda, a Chaney High teacher, said Bland could at first "be like a drill sergeant," but came to realize she also was "a teddy bear at heart." During one of her local visits, Bland met Gonda’s granddaughter, which was the impetus for Gonda to teach her granddaughter what Bland and others in the movement stood for, she told a packed house.
"I remember thinking, 'This woman is a force,'"
the Rev. J.P. Robles, who pastors Sacred Commons Church in Youngstown, said.
Even when Bland was being arrested for her nonviolent activities, she had the wisdom to know that freedom and liberation stood on the other side of the fence of the dark times she was enduring, Robles added.
Brittinie Vernon, a 2022 Chaney High graduate, recalled a visit Bland made to her school. Vernon was trying to hide her pregnancy at the time, but Bland knew she was to have a baby, and she lovingly placed her hand on Vernon's stomach, she said.
Penny Wells, Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past's executive director, said she not only wants Bland to be remembered for her legacy but for people to emulate her example and embrace her spirit via taking action to carry both forward -- especially in today's political climate in which legislative efforts are underway to erode voting rights.
Along those lines, it's also vital people borrow from her example of activism and use it locally to better Youngstown and the larger community, Wells added.
Davis brought up her childhood memories of "making snow angels" during the winter and living a peaceful existence; yet at the same time Bland was being beaten and jailed for standing up for what she felt was right.
Davis, a former Youngstown police officer, said she empathizes with what Bland and others in the civil rights movement in the 1960s endured. In addition, Bland helped Davis see the importance of ridding one's heart of hatred, Davis continued.
During many of her presentations with Sojourn to the Past groups and others, Bland liked to use the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle to stress the importance of what she saw as every person's role in movements for social change.
"Everyone is a unique and special piece; if your piece is missing, the picture is not complete because you are the most important piece,"
she often said.