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Teaching truth

Heather Smith, of Salem and a teacher for Youngstown schools, talks Saturday morning about Freedom Schools, which aim to provide students with a curriculum focused on empowerment, critical thinking and social justice during the fifth annual Teach Truth Walk had in Salem. Several dozen participants walked two miles throughout Salem from Hope Cemetery, where abolitionist Edwin Coppock is interred, ultimately to the new Abraham Lincoln statue in Lincoln Plaza at the corner of State Street and Lincoln Avenue. (Photo by Stephanie Ujhelyi)
Missy Carchedi, a second grade teacher from Mars (Pa.) Area Elementary School, spoke about Edwin Coppock, an abolitionist who had lived nearby in Winona, and his involvement in John Brown’s raid in Harper’s Ferry. Later it was called the dress rehearsal for the Civil War. Ultimately Brown and Coppock, who is interred in Salem’s Hope Cemetery, were executed as a result. Carchedi was in attendance as part of the fifth annual Teach Truth Day walk, where a few dozen people would visit Coppock’s grave before proceeding to the homes of other key anti-slavery figures within Salem and the St. John AME church before ending at Lincoln Plaza. (Photo by Stephanie Ujhelyi)
This Freedom to Learn sign rested on the seat of a picnic bench front and center during a Saturday morning meeting in Waterworth Memorial Park’s Pavilion 8 prior tom fifth annual Teach Truth Day of Action. After hearing from a few speakers, a few dozen participants walked two miles from Hope Cemetery to the new Abraham Lincoln statue in downtown Salem. Teachers gathered to express their community to teaching the truth no matter what the law says. (Photo by Stephanie Ujhelyi)

From left, Kurt Jackson and Kevin Mann, both of Salem, lead the fifth annual Teach Truth walk from Waterworth Memorial Park Saturday morning. The walk was part of nationwide initiatives through the Zinn Education Project, which includes a commitment from American teachers to teach the truth no matter what the law says. After starting at Edwin Coppock’s grave at Hope Cemetery, the group then traveled down Lincoln Way, passing Marius and Emily Robinson’s home, and then past the St. John AME Church and Underground Railroad conductor George Lucas’ house before culminating the day at the new Abraham Lincoln statue. Coppock had been hanged as a result of his anti-slavery efforts at John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, while the Robinsons published The Anti-Slavery Bugle and were avid abolitionists. (Photo by Stephanie Ujhelyi)

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