Simeon Booker Award for Courage given in memory of Youngstown community activist
On Tuesday, two awards will be given out in remembrance of Simeon Booker, award-winning African American journalist, as part of the week-long Ohio Nonviolence Week series in Youngstown.
Former Senator Doug Jones is the national recipient of the Simeon Booker Award for Courage.
In 2001 and 2002, Jones was a federal prosecutor in Alabama who prosecuted two of the four Klu Klux Klansmen who planted a bomb in 1963 at a church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four girls.
He prosecuted Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry almost forty years after the bombing.
Senator Jones will be the speaker for the evening.
The local Simeon Booker Award for Courage will be given to Victoria Allen posthumously. Allen was a local social justice activist who worked tirelessly in the Youngstown community.
The Youngstown Police Department nominated Allen for her work as a liaison with the police department gathering information about crimes and helping to calm crowds that gathered at the scene of violent crimes.
Allen will be remembered as exhibiting a selfless commitment to the Youngstown community.
She received the 2021 Distinguished Civilian Leadership Award from the Ohio Attorney General David Yost.
There will be a reception at 5:30 p.m. at the Tyler History Center which costs $35. The award ceremony will follow at 7 p.m. in the ballroom at the Tyler History Center and is free to attend.
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This story was originally published October 7, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
