LYNN — Two events in the city on Monday honored the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but in different ways.
The Community Minority Cultural Center (CMCC), a Lynn-based organization promoting multiculturalism, hosted the 32nd annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast at the Porthole Restaurant. Speakers talked about how the civil rights movement still resonates today.
Over at Lynn Museum and Historical Society, the 7th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service was held, which organizers said honors what the civil rights leader stood for.
“(It’s about) honoring the legacy of Dr. King and really what he stood for is giving back to his people, trying to equal the things out and that’s what we’re trying to do here, giving back to all walks of life here, all types of culture and heritages and it’s just awesome when the community comes together,” said Jaime Figueroa, chairman of the Lynn Community Association, which chaired of the Day of Service event, put on by the Lynn Coalition.
Service events included making 1,000 toiletry kits for the Lynn Shelter Association and My Brother’s Table, serving lunch at My Brother’s Table, making 40 hygiene and essential bags for the Plummer Youth Promise in Salem, writing Valentine’s Day cards to seniors and veterans and letters to deployed service members, and making 4,000 bookmarks to be donated to the Lynn Public Library in honor of Dr. King.
Ashley Fuentes, 14, of Lynn, made the Valentine’s cards — she said she got involved so she could help others and make them feel good about themselves, and remember what people have done for the country.
“We should spread kindness all around the world so we can be nice to one another and keep smiling,” Fuentes said.
Darrell Murkison, secretary of the CMCC and the master of ceremonies for the breakfast, spoke about how the civil rights movement has evolved today.
“We’re living in very difficult times and people say we’re even regressing,” Murkison said. “We’ve gone back. We’ve lost ground. The civil rights movement is (there). It’s onto a new time. Affirmative action is nonexistent. Our unemployment for black people is twice as everyone else, twice the rate.
“We still have a lot of work to do. I have to say to you today, be encouraged because we have people willing to take up this fight. We know we have a lot of ground to cover. And we’ve made a great deal of progress … It’s embodied right here in the city of Lynn.”
Murkison also spoke harshly about President Donald Trump, without naming him, saying “45 is out of control,” and adding that the America right now is a lot different than people grew up hoping they would be living in 2018.
“We need new leaders,” he said. “We need young leaders. We need people with hope. We need people with compassion for other people. We need people that are going to be uplifting to all. There’s an old saying, all ships rise with the incoming tide. There’s enough room here for all of us and all of us to do well.”
Mayor Thomas M. McGee said what struck him about King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is how passionately he spoke about a better America. He said the day was not only about King’s birthday, but about celebrating what’s best about this community and the country, referencing the day of service event.
“As the mayor of this city, I really look towards bringing us together in a crazy political environment that always looks to divide us, but we have so much more in common that really reflects on what we are as a community, what we are as a people in this country,” McGee said.
“I’m looking forward as the mayor of this community to work with all of you to ensure that we are leaders in recognizing that we’re going to show the way on what it means to be a great citizen of this community and this country by coming together, finding what we have in common, and making sure that all of us together share a better tomorrow. Let’s really celebrate a great man by making this a day to celebrate a better America.”
The Rev. Bernadette Hickman-Maynard, of Bethel AME Church, spoke about the famous march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, which took three attempts and four days on the third try, and was meant to draw attention to the evils of segregation, discrimination and voter disenfranchisement.
Upon reaching Montgomery, she said the crowd was triumphant, but also tired after 350 years of slavery and segregation, weary with discrimination, degradation and dehumanization for centuries. After the march, she said King spoke to the crowd and said to them, I know you are asking today, how long will it take, to which he replied not long, as the arm of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
“And here we are almost 53 years after that speech, 53 years after the march from Selma to Montgomery and in many ways, we’ve marched forward and in many ways we’ve been beaten back,” Hickman-Maynard said.
Hickman-Maynard said black people are still beaten back by the forces of racism, saying that the incarceration rate for black men is six times higher than for white men, and three times higher for black women than white women.
She said there are increasingly segregated schools where access to high quality education remains unequal and that income inequality is worse than it was in the 1970s, adding that the poverty in the Northeast region is concentrated in communities of color.
“Dr. King’s legacy lives far beyond his actions in the Civil Rights movement,” Hickman-Maynard said. “He inspired people across the world to continue to press, to not give up in the face of injustice, no matter where it is, whether we need to take the fight to the proverbial them, or even if we need to take the fight to the proverbial us. Because King said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Many people may not believe they can overcome injustice because they are following a script that someone else wrote for them. But she said everyone has the power to change the story. The fight against inequality didn’t just happen on the streets of Ferguson or Wall Street or Washington D.C., she said.
“The fight against inequality happens in our homes,” Hickman-Maynard said. “It happens in our classrooms. It happens in our schools. It happens in our religious institutions. It happens when we see the fight is against racism and sexism, against homophobia and oppression in all of its forms, whether it takes place in the police station, in institutions of higher learning, or in our own hearts and mind. Because the threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
“And still we ask how long … As long as it takes for everyone to experience the reality of the statement, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all people are created equal, and all really means all.”
