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Mount Vernon Mayor Takes Part in Peace December Lighting Event

MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. -- Mount Vernon City Mayor Ernest Davis joined the New York Peace Coalition on Monday, to kick off Peace December, a movement to take a stand against "violence and violent acts that reduce the quality of life" across the globe.

Mount Vernon City Mayor Ernest Davis joined officials from the New York Peace Coalition to take part in International Peace Lighting Day.

Mount Vernon City Mayor Ernest Davis joined officials from the New York Peace Coalition to take part in International Peace Lighting Day.

Photo Credit: submitted

“Peace December is a movement that started in New York City and is gaining momentum in countries across the world,” Davis said before Monday's Lighting ceremony. "With so much violence occurring over the past year in nations across the globe, we will also pay our respects to victims of countries suffering loss of life and property.”

Peace December began as an interfaith response to the "disturbing high levels of violence in New York," according to organizers. The movement has since spread worldwide.

According to organizers of Monday event, the Peace December Lighting aimed to "shed light on the importance of finding peaceful resolutions to conflicts that threaten individuals in countries worldwide."

Monday's ceremony was to open with lighting for victims of attacks and a prayer for an end to violence. 

Honored during the event were civil rights pioneers Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks.

Colvin, at the age of 15, was the first person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Ala., preceding Parks by nine months in 1955. Shortly after being arrested, she became pregnant, which led leaders of the civil rights movement to deem her unworthy of being the face of the movement, according to organizers, and she was replaced by Parks.

Colvin moved to New York in 1958 and worked as a nurse's aide until retiring in 2004. She currently lives in the Bronx.

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