Taking place this Thursday at Benton Harbor High School is the Annual Peace Walk and Peace Day Reunion.

The event will bring together more than 500 students, educators, parents, and community members for a peaceful march from the high school to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Monument at City Center Park, followed by a return to the school campus for continued celebration and reflection.

Benton Harbor resident Gwen Johnson Swanigan spoke to Benton Harbor City Commissioners about the event this week.

“I want to invite all of you to be there in the community to come out and stand with our youth and walk with our youth and celebrate with our youth,” Swanigan said.

Swanigan said all should support the effort.

Benton Harbor Area Schools says the event serves as the grand finale of a transformative Civil Rights Trail Tour recently completed by 38 Benton Harbor High School students. They traveled to key sites in Atlanta, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, walking the same streets where legends of the Civil Rights Movement marched.

Peace Day founder and creator Elnora Gavin says the message of today’s march is that “if our students are peaceful, our schools are more peaceful, their homes will be more peaceful, and our community will be more peaceful.”

The march starts at 8:15 a.m. and Peace Day runs through 11 a.m.