Like Martin Luther King, Jr., four Syracuse community members are working toward their ideas of justice. These community members received the Unsung Hero Award at the 30th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration, and are seen as people who have made a difference through their activism and service in the city.

Here are their stories, and what they believe, hope, want and envision for a better Syracuse.

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Mable Wilson believes institutionalized racism needs to change in Syracuse.

From racial discrimination in police departments, to public schools, to prisons, Wilson thinks Syracuse and America have work to do. Wilson hopes society can soon move past it.

Wilson is helping address these problems as a key member of Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse. ACTS is a group comprised of religious organizations in Onondaga County that is made up of different task forces that bring social issues to the front. Wilson is chair of the Food Task Force.

“I hope we don’t have to hear about any more shootings by the police department or in our black communities that young black people are shooting each other,” Wilson said. “I hope that we can work together as a government that deals out equal justice for its citizens. I hope there’s equal justice in food issues. I hope we can move forward as a nation that’s together, not apart.”

Outside ACTS, Wilson has made food her main focus in helping Syracuse. She is one of the co-founders of the West Newell Street Community Garden and of Syracuse Grows, an organization that helps create community gardens throughout the city.

Wilson said the gardens are important because they give the community something positive to participate in, helping bring fresh food to people who cannot afford it.

“We’ve come a long way since the Civil Rights Movement in this country, and now we’re looking at a new civil rights movement,” Wilson said. “It takes time. We’re still living out Martin Luther King’s dream.”

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Dajaveon Bellamy hopes that 10 years from now, there will finally be more love, kindness and unity among mankind in America.

As a Cicero-North Syracuse High School student, 15-year-old Bellamy was the youngest recipient of an Unsung Hero Award at the 30th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration.

Bellamy has helped the Syracuse community by donating and collecting meals and goods to the Catholic Charities’ men’s homeless center.

“When I received the award, I felt proud,” Bellamy said. “I felt like I had accomplished something. I felt motivated.”

Bellamy, who is on the autism spectrum, continues to pursue his goals — be it with his work in the Syracuse community or his interest in karate.

“It has made me realize just how blessed I am that God entrusted me with a kid with this type of heart and love and compassion for mankind,” his mother Terry Bellamy said.

Bellamy’s advice for other teenagers who want to make a difference is to follow their dreams and not hold back.

“I would tell them to follow their heart, and if they see something they feel they can make a change for the better in, then by all means they should go for it,” Bellamy said.

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Karaline Rothwell wants to give a voice to the voiceless in the Near Westside.

In August 2013, Rothwell heard that a 7-year-old boy poked a 5-year-old girl with a littered syringe in the Near Westside. As a mother, Rothwell knew something in the community needed to change.

Rothwell, co-chair of the Westside Residents Coalition and an admissions assistant at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, has focused many of her volunteer efforts on clearing her neighborhood, the Near Westside, of syringe litter.

“There are not many people that are giving this issue attention. Martin Luther (King) was a voice for people who didn’t have a voice, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do in the last year,” Rothwell said.

Because the issue has not received much attention from the city of Syracuse, and the city does not yet have an immediate response policy for cleaning syringe litter, Rothwell has struggled in her efforts to keep the Near Westside free of syringes.

“I think for me, I come home a lot and there’s times where I feel deceived when we’re still finding syringe litter in the neighborhood,” Rothwell said. “It’s hard to get people to volunteer, and I sometimes feel defeated.”

After reading one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s biographies, Rothwell was inspired to persevere in her efforts to keep the Near Westside clean, letting her faith in God guide her.

Rothwell’s volunteering group worked together to make signs to raise awareness of the syringe litter in the community. Rothwell said the volunteers prayed on the signs together before hanging them, like King did with protesters before sit-ins.

“(King) felt defeated at times, but he didn’t give up, and he trusted God to push him forward,” Rothwell said. “I do the same thing — before reading it, I would feel defeated, but there would be a force telling me not to stop volunteering.”

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Ronald Taylor envisions a Syracuse where young African-American men realize their full potential.

Through helping other young African-American males, like himself, deal with the stereotypes that they face, Taylor, a senior political science and policy studies dual major, founded Cultural Project Rejuvenation during his freshman year at SU.

CPR is a 10-week program that runs each fall and spring. Taylor and his team of five work with 30 young men. CPR’s three priorities, Taylor said, are to remind the young men of their agency, to help them recognize their talents and to help them accomplish their goals.

“I’ve learned more in speaking with students about their experiences than I have sometimes sitting in a classroom learning about education policy,” Taylor said.

He uses the term “double consciousness” to describe what it’s like to be an African-American male at SU.

The term, coined by W.E.B. Du Bois, encompasses the feeling of torn identity — the dichotomy between one’s true self and how one’s self is perceived by others.

“Can I be Ronald or should I be what people think Ronald should be? And which one should I be to survive in this condition?” Taylor said.

At SU, Taylor thinks ignorance of race relations is a problem among the student body and in classrooms.

“It’s the most disrespectful thing, I think, when you walk into a classroom, like I have here, and people think race problems were solved in 1956,” Taylor said. “You can’t expect an entire people to recover from 500 years of oppression in a tenth of that time.”

Taylor said he should not have to alter his presence to be comfortable.

Said Taylor: “At the end of the day I am an African-American male, and I am proud to be an African-American male.”

Published on February 3, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Alex: aerdekia@syr.edu