STILL HAS ‘WORK TO DO’
Some see progress, others see status quo
Boston community leaders this weekend are contemplating where the city stands, 49 years after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Here are some who are sharing their thoughts with Herald readers.
Tanisha Sullivan, Boston NAACP: “I would hope that Dr. King would see the progress that we made. But I believe he would continue to challenge us to keep pressing forward because we still have work to do. ... When we look at our criminal justice system, and see that black and brown men are disproportionately impacted by mass incarceration and the laws that we have with regard to mandatory minimums ... Dr. King would say we still have work to do.”
Larry Ellison, Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers: “We have not moved one foot forward. Their claim is we have the most diverse command staff. We're talking about eight or nine people who have been impacted while the rest of us are suffering. I don't think MLK would be smiling on Boston today. He wouldn't be saying, `I have a dream' — this would be his worst nightmare.”
Emmett Folgert, Dorchester Youth Collaborative: “MLK, wherever he is in days of afterlife, has got to be incredibly proud of the accomplishments of things that he's started. Look at multicultural marriages, and dating and media. There are many TV shows showing positive images of people getting along with each other. ... But I'm sure he'd be frustrated at the leadership. I think people have lost confidence in love. I think we've lost confidence in the power of love. That's what powered Martin Luther King — love and justice.”
Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice: “We are the city where Martin Luther King became Dr. King. From Boston, a tremendous amount of work was done to fight segregation, discrimination and racial injustice. We've come a long way since the '60s when Dr. King led a march from Roxbury to the Common to bring attention to the fact that conditions in Boston were too similar to conditions in the deep South. ... But we have a tremendous amount of work to do to make sure that legal accomplishments of the Civil Rights era trickle down and improve the day-to-day experience of people of color in Boston and beyond.”
Horace Small, Union of Minority Neighborhoods: “He'd be the first one to tell us to stop dreaming. Dreaming is a luxury of people who have time to kill. We don't have time to kill anymore. His message would be wake the hell up and let's figure out how to improve things. ... He would be appalled at the race relations that exist today, not just in the United States, but in Boston and the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Dr. King would tell people to wake up and get engaged.”
Darnell Williams, Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts: “He would be sadly disappointed, from his `I have a dream' speech to where we are in reality. The fringe voices that have been emboldened because of the election have divided America. We are somewhere in between right where we were during the Civil War to the shootout at the O.K. Corral. ... It's a mess.”