Nearly 400 residents, parents, members of clergy, police officers, and community activists gathered at Crenshaw High School recently to participate in “Hands Around Crenshaw High School,” a community call to promote healing and unity.

Many attending said they were disturbed by the recent racial turbulence that broke out at Locke High School and hoped that this gathering would be the symbolic event that would promote peace in other schools in the Southland.

Dressed in a tailored black and yellow suit, her blond hair streaked and coifed to perfection, Helen Pearson was the picture of poised elegance at the recent annual Black Writers on Tour. But as she fingered a written statement in her hands, Pearson’s shoulders began to shake. “I was a battered wife for 18 years,” Pearson revealed.

Pearson was one of four authors who revealed lives of pain and how they overcame abuse during the recent Black Writers on Tour at the Marriot Hotel in Los Angeles.