Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams hadn’t yet reached the steps of the stage at a peace rally Saturday before the crowd of high school and middle school students began their chant of “Betty! Betty!”
The PeaceJam Summer of Peace march and rally drew 200 students from the Rocky Mountain region in an effort to raise awareness about gang violence and prevent the bloodshed that paralyzed Denver 14 years ago.
Williams, a peace prize winner in 1976 along with Mairead Corrigan, invited gang members to stop the violence and join PeaceJam.
“All these youngs are committed to change, why wouldn’t I be here?” said Williams, who is from Northern Ireland. “This is the other side of gang violence.”
Williams and Corrigan received the prize after they founded the Northern Ireland Peace Movement in response to the killing of three children by an IRA member trying to escape police.
“Having a Nobel Peace laureate here motivates us to action so much,” said Lucky Davis, 17, a student from New Vista High School in Boulder.
Started in Denver in 1996 in reaction to gang violence in the summer of 1993, PeaceJam brings Nobel laureates to meet with young people to work on social- justice issues in their own communities.
Students marched from the Denver Center for International Studies at Sixth Avenue and Elati Street to West 11th Avenue and Speer Boulevard, where Denver Bronco Darrent Williams was killed in January.
There students signed pledges in Broncos orange and blue stating that they would reclaim their communities for peace. The murder investigation continues and the police have contacted persons of interest in the case.
In front of the crowd, Betty Williams stressed that work must be done to achieve peace.
“Marching for peace won’t bring peace, praying for peace won’t bring peace. Working for peace will bring peace,” she said.
Students acknowledged that the rally was the beginning of a broader effort.
“It takes more than just this to put an end to violence, it takes help from the government,” said Sam Olson, 14, a student at Casey Middle School in Boulder.
Although challenging, Williams said, peace is the only recourse.
“Nonviolence is the weapon of the strong, not the weak,” she said. “That’s the lesson.”
Staff writer Gabriela Resto-Montero can be reached at 303-954-1638 or grestomontero@denverpost.com.
