This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 17, 2011 - Merdean Fielding Gales remembers feeling helpless and angry when Tyrone Thompson, a mentor to many youngsters, was himself murdered by a youngster during an apparent robbery seven months ago in Black Jack.
The incident was all the more disturbing to Gales because she is a close friend from childhood of Thompson's mother, former state Rep. Betty Thompson of University City.
"I was really hurt and just plain mad," says Gales, "But when I talked to Betty, she comforted me and said something good has to come out of this."
That something began to take shape Friday afternoon during a three-hour dedication of the Tyrone Thompson Institute for Nonviolence. It will be housed at the William Harrison Education Center, 3140 Cass Ave., a satellite facility for St. Louis Community College at Forest Park.
The institute, said attorney Cheryl Walker, will serve as a place where suspended students will find a nurturing environment. Walker, who was mistress of ceremony at the event, said the institute would first target children in eighth grades or lower at Bryan Hill, Clay, Dunbar and Gateway schools. Students from Forest Park will help the younger children with their homework, she said. The student mentors also will get training to teach suspended students ways to address conflicts through nonviolent tactics.
Martin Luther King Day
A civic ceremony begins at 10 a.m., Mon., Jan. 17, at the Old Courthouse, Fourth and Market streets, downtown St. Louis. After a short program, participants will march to Powell Symphony Hall on Grand Boulevard and Enright Avenue for music and speeches. Betty Thompson will be among the speakers.
The Harrison building will provide the space for the program, and the Thompson family, through a foundation, is expected to provide the funding. On Friday, however, no one could say how much money would be raised for the program or what other funding sources might be tapped.
The event's main speaker, the Rev. Bernard LaFayette Jr., a scholar at Emory University, praised those who are setting up the Thompson Institute. "What you are talking about doing is going to be the next nonviolent movement. St. Louis ought to start the next movement," he said.
Considered an authority on nonviolent social change, LaFayette mentioned his own experienced in working with gangs. He said the approach that works best involves treating gang members "like I wanted them to be. If you push them in that category, they will perform to your expectations."
He said, "I didn't destroy the gang; I transformed the gang. It's an approach, a strategy that has worked. Instead of repelling them, you have to transform them. You will be able to witness something you've never dreamed will happen."
Also speaking was Attorney General Chris Koster. Thompson was a consumer fraud investigator in that office at the time of the shooting. He also had been a police officer in University City and police chief of Pagedale. Koster called Thompson a man who believed in law and order, but also focused on the humanity of those he encountered in his work. Thompson once served as head of the St. Louis Martin Luther King Non-Violent Youth Support Group and also had been setting up a mentoring program at University City High School where he'd been a student.
According to police, Thompson, 47, was sitting in his sports utility vehicle, waiting for an acquaintance when two men with guns approached in what was believed to be a robbery attempt. During an exchange of gunfire, police said Thompson and one of the teens, Jackeem Hicks, 18, died. The second young man, Billy Cushshon-Bey, 18 at the time of the shooting, is awaiting trial on charges of murder for both killings.
Of Thompson's death, Koster said, "All of us remember the feeling we had when we heard the news, sadness and anger. But we also feel, today, a sense of hope."
He said the institute "will have an opportunity to reach young people before they fall into hopelessness, making today the beginning of a new era, a time for change."
Zelema Harris, chancellor of St. Louis Community College, stressed that the institute not only would focus on youngsters but on parents or guardians. She said society had not paid attention to the needs of the parents, and that the institute "will give them the tools right here in this room, teach them how to be better parents."
Participation by parents and guardians is expected to be one of the conditions for providing help for wayward youngsters.
Just as she had comforted Gales following the shooting of her son, Betty Thompson stressed at the gathering that people needed to reach out to troubled young people.
"It's a dark day in America," she said of the violence. "Something is wrong, but we have to do our part, too. Reach one, teach one. That's what we have to do."
Fielding says Thompson's calm, reasoned reaction to the shooting seven months ago was why Thompson was chosen as the speaker for this year's Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday celebration at Powell Hall on Monday.
