There is a particular resonance this year to the messages delivered during tributes organized in the Valley and beyond honoring civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. and his call to action urging Americans to rise up against social and economic injustices, racism and oppression.
“How We Shall Resist” was the theme of the 33rd annual celebration in Northampton organized by the American Friends Service Committee. Rather than speeches, it featured 10 Monday afternoon workshops calling for activism around issues ranging from immigrant and worker rights to climate change.
King’s message remains just as relevant and important now as it was a half-century ago “given the tone of the incoming administration in Washington,” says Jeff Napolitano, AFSC director. “We face unprecedented threats in keeping our communities not just functional, but cohesive and undivided.”
Napolitano is right. And King’s words from the 1960s carry special meaning as Donald Trump, who strode to victory at least partly on a message of exclusion, stands ready to become our nation’s 45th president.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.” — From a collection of King’s sermons published in his 1963 book “Strength to Love.”
Amherst too did away with the traditional keynote speech and celebrated King’s legacy with music during its 33rd annual breakfast Saturday. Singers young and old performed music ranging from gospel to hip-hop.
While the theme was celebratory, the coming challenges also were noted. As Jacqueline Wallace, director of the Amherst Area Gospel Choir, put it, “We have some battles and struggles ahead of us. We have got to be healing — healing for our pain, healing for our strength.”
“I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. … I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.” — From King’s speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10, 1964.
Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, the U.S. senators from Massachusetts, spoke Monday at the 47th annual breakfast in Boston honoring King’s work for peace and justice.
Echoing some of the same themes that King voiced during the 1960s, Markey and Warren urged Americans to challenge president-elect Donald Trump’s policies that threaten to roll back civil rights. In the words of Warren, “It is time for us to cause necessary trouble, all of us.”
And Markey referred to perhaps King’s best-known speech, “I Have a Dream,” in drawing a comparison to the president-elect. “… Donald Trump has a dream. He has a dream that one day, our nation will be surrounded by a wall built with bigotry and hate. Donald Trump has a dream that one day, our nation will have no more Muslims or mosques or Planned Parenthood or Social Security.”
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up the that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’ ” — From “I Have a Dream” delivered by King on Aug. 28, 1963.
On Monday, Trump met privately at Trump Tower with King’s oldest son, Martin Luther King III, to discuss voting rights. King described the meeting as “constructive.” Trump did not speak publicly about their conversation.
Rather the president-elect took to Twitter Monday morning: “Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!”
“On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.” — From a sermon delivered by King on March 31, 1968.
King was assassinated four days later. But his dream must not die.