The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Leaders reflect on racial justice
Local leaders gathering online and in-person remembered and honored the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and made renewed calls to move forward for more racial and economic justice.
Organized by the Interfaith Ministries of Lorain County, the ceremony was broadcast live at God’s Kngdom, 423 Washington Ave. in Lorain, and by video conference.
Heal our land
Imam Paul Hasan, Interfaith Ministries of Lorain County, said the afternoon of togetherness and positive messages was to heal the crisis in the nation, and the Black community.
Thematically, Hasan said reflecting on 2020 was about healing the wounds that exist in the country and in recognizing and addressing the institutionalized racism that continues to permeate American society.
“We need a healing because we no longer see hope; we no longer see a future,” he said. “So, the (novel coronavirus) pandemic has caused a real crisis in the Black community.
“We have more Black on Black homicide now in the Black community. Our children are not really being educated in the Black community.
“Our children are not really getting justice in the Black community. We are calling for justice, but we aren’t getting justice.”
Alluding to the epidemic, which is estimated to hit 500,000 deaths in the United States in February, and the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, Hasan advocated the need for a complete justice in recognition of these challenges.
King’s words
Lorain Mayor Jack Bradley evoked the words of King in drawing parallels between the presidency of Donald J. Trump and the period of reconstruction in the post-Civil War south and the image of the Confederate battle flag in the U.S. Capitol.
“We didn’t get Jim Crow, we got Donald Trump,” Bradley said. “And we see what has happened in the last four years.
“Not only did we get a return to times of separation, white supremacy, not being neighbors to each other, but on Jan. 6, we actually got an attack on the Capitol of the United States.
“And that was an attack on everything that Martin Luther King was against.”
Bradley recalled a quote by King in the months prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
“Let us march on ballot boxes,” said Bradley quoting King. “Let’s march on ballot boxes until race baiters disappear from the political arena. Let us march on ballot boxes until the salient misdeeds of blood thirsty mobs will be transformed into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens.”
King spoke these words more than 50 years ago, but his message still resonates in reflecting on the image of the Confederate flag in the Capitol as rioters stormed, the mayor said.
“I would hate to think that that flag may have been purchased at our own Lorain County Fair,” Bradley said. “A flag that was carried by traitors to the United States in battle to overturn the government of the United States to separate part of the United States.”
Longtime activist Rhoda Lee, 85, recalled being a young girl in Mississippi under Jim Crow institutionalized segregation and the fear provoked by the Confederate flag, evoking the story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black youth lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after he was accused of offending a white woman.
“I’m so concerned with what happened on the 6th at the Capitol to see that Confederate flag,” Lee said. “They would put the Confederate flags on their cars trucks at night and come through our community.
“Our parents and our grandparents would put out the lights and we had to be very quiet.”
Lee said the community needs to come together to look out for Lorain County youth who need support and guidance.
She also encouraged the city of Lorain to put together a coalition to address disparities in education and the needs of vulnerable people.
Lee pointed to a recent decision by the Lorain County Board of Commissioners to revoke more than $4 million in funding allocated to Lorain County service organizations.
She called the move “despicable.”
“And if we want to do something, I think we need to go — all of us taking our congregations, to the (Lorain) County commissioners to let them know that these are our children,” Lee said. “These are God’s children.
“And as such, we’re here to help address their needs and take care of those.”