Juvenile Training School minister and activist begins hunger strike

Published: Monday, October 17, 2011

HARTFORD (AP) — Cornell Lewis is no stranger to activism.

He rallied residents of Hartford to root out drug dealers in their neighborhoods. He organized a protest against the planned closure of a post office in one of the poorest sections of Connecticut's capital city. And he formed a group mostly comprised of black and Latino men to escort fatherless children to school during a particularly dangerous time in the city's troubled north end.

But Lewis' latest demonstration is more personal. On Monday, the 61-year-old minister, who works as a youth service officer at the state-run Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown, began a hunger strike. He is attempting to draw attention to what he claims is a racist attitude toward minority employees at the state's only secure facility for delinquent boys.

"I've been involved in a lot of different protests over the years, however, this one is intensely personal because who I am as a person is being attacked," Lewis, who is black, told The Associated Press. "I'm being objectified and marginalized by people within what I call the DCF plantation, the Department of Children and Families plantation, specifically the Connecticut Juvenile Training School." Click here to keep reading.