LYNN — On Monday at the 38th annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast, the city’s Black leaders said that much has been accomplished since April 4, 1968, the day Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., but those same leaders said there is still much to be done.
The theme of the breakfast, held at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Lynn, was the Year of the Woman. Many successful Black women attended the gathering, emphasizing, along with other speakers, that there is still much work necessary in the area of equity for Black Americans.
“It’s easy to celebrate when you win. It’s harder when we have so far to go,” said Darrell Murkison, executive director of the Lynn Community Minority Cultural Center, who served as master of ceremonies.
Despite the speeches covering the issues Black communities face, it was an optimistic affair. Two leaders, Executive Director of Lynn Museum/Lynn Arts Doneeca Thurston-Chavez and Lynn Councilor-at-Large Nicole McClain, along with youth representatives Engelyz Bingham and Niya Bingham, shared their perspectives on King, as they all trace their initial exposure to his ideas to the famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, which McClain said she memorized it and recited it in her class.
Keynote speaker Dr. Kenann McKenzie-DeFranza, president of the North Shore NAACP, celebrated the theme of “Year of the Women” and emphasized the hidden aspects of segregation that still affect Black communities.
“Dr. King did a lot of his work with the support of the women around him,” McKenzie-DeFraza said. “And we’re further and further away from the time his message was delivered live.”
She recalled how she was treated as an immigrant from Guyana, which many of her peers considered a “third world country,” and how Brooklyn school officials automatically held her grade back because of her status.
Later, when she began studying housing policies in several regions where she worked, she noticed a prime example of ‘microaggressions’ that people either didn’t notice or became used to.
“On some deeds, it is written that the property cannot be sold to people of color,” she said.
“A lot of people don’t know this, you can ask them to delete that clause, and a lot of them do. In fact, one family even went so far as to relinquish some of the money (the property was worth) because it felt as if people in the past had been hurt,” McKenzie-DeFraza said.
But, she said, King vowed to keep fighting, and so should Black Americans today.
“As he said, ‘You can bomb our churches, bomb our houses, and we will sleep in the mud, but we will not stop,'” McKenzie-DeFraza repeated.
“Those words were inspiring to me,” she said.
There were four recipients of the CMCC Women of the Year awards: McClain, Thurston-Chavez, Ward 2 Councilor Natasha Megie Maddrey, and School Committee member Andrea Satterwhite.
Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson also emphasized that his office has embraced diversity and inclusion, noting that currently one in three people of color is employed at City Hall instead of one in 10 when he took the office.
