King honored in face of Trump
“When the least get together, something new happens,” says pastor Jennifer Leath
Colorado leaders, including veterans of civil rights struggles, on Sunday launched Denver’s commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr., 50 years after his assassination. They were stoked by President Donald Trump’s latest remarks about who should have a place in America and scrambling for traction in a fresh push for social and economic peace.
They urged a big turnout Monday for Denver’s march from City Park to Civic Center. They called for political action to tackle systemic problems from unfair labor laws to “the prison-industrial complex.”
A half century after King led millions making a stand, “we also are standing in the shadows of some deep sorrow in our country,” the Rev. Terrence Hughes, president of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, told a crowd of 500 at the Friendship Baptist Church of Christ Jesus in east Denver.
“It is what unites us that is important,” Hughes said.
“We know the president has said some things that were disparaging of African nations,” he said, referring to widely quoted comments from an Oval Office meeting about immigration from countries of Africa and Haiti.
“It really is upon us to come together and speak out against it. … We all have a moral obligation to challenge that which is challenging us. … He is saying things to people of African descent right in this country. … He is very thorough in his ability to offend.”
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock referred to “atrocities.” U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, told people in the church that he recently went to
Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire on a swing that included checking out a former slave-trading hub by a church — a place that he said former President Barack Obama had visited.
“Our president ought to make a visit to that place, so that he understands what he is talking about,” Bennet said.
Former Mayor Wellington Webb called this “a strange time, but not an unusual time,” referring to “the white nationalist who is president of the United States” and history from transatlantic slave ships through “reconstruction” and the Great Depression.
“We have to understand that the most important thing we can do is spend less time on a white nationalist and more time on organizing our communities,” Webb said. He introduced his spouse, former state legislator Wilma Webb, who helped establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday in Colorado and reckoned King would be “very, very concerned about what’s going on in Washington, D.C., and the world.”
King’s work isn’t finished, she said. “I haven’t been hearing the quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King that I used to hear. Those quotes gave us direction.”
Keynote speaker Jennifer Leath, senior pastor at Campbell AME Episcopal Church, said the direction ought to be a revived collective effort “to find the true connections that exist between us and build on them.”
Colorado residents could begin with daily actions aimed at making the world better. “These sacred acts and practices can be small” and “people who do them can be small,” including people marginalized by racial oppression and poverty,” Leath said.
“When the least get together, something new happens.”
It would take commitment, Leath said, quoting King: “‘If you haven’t discovered something that you will die for, you are not fit to live.’ ”
“If you don’t stand up for something, you will fall for anything,” Leath said. “Move, Denver, into places of peace. Move, Denver, into places of joy. Move, Denver, into places of justice. Move, Denver, into places of truth.”