King holiday marked amid fears of division
DETROIT — To commemorate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Nicholas Thomas and more than 100 other volunteers will board up vacant houses, install school safety signs and make other improvements to a Detroit neighborhood. Their mission is to celebrate King’s legacy by being good neighbors and helping lift up a primarily black school in one of the poorer areas of the city.
As Thomas fans out across the neighborhood with hammer and nails, King’s legacy of peace and racial and social justice will be foremost in his mind. But at the same time, he’s struggling to come to grips with racial divisions roiling the nation.
As the nation marks the holiday honoring King, the mood surrounding it is overshadowed by deteriorating race relations in an election season that has seen one candidate of color after another quit the 2020 presidential race.
Two black candidates — U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker — and the lone candidate of Hispanic ancestry, former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, have dropped out.
People have the right to be concerned about the state of race relations and the way people of color, in particular, are being treated, said Jill Savitt, president of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta.
“What we’re seeing right now, it’s very public and people are showing their hatred openly, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there,” Savitt said.
President Donald Trump is trying to court black voters, knowing that he isn’t likely to win them over en masse but could chip into Democratic advantages if he wins more black support in critical swing states. His campaign has stepped up outreach efforts, including to African Americans and Latinos.
The campaign already has spent more than $1 million on black outreach, including radio, print and online advertising in dozens of markets since the coalition’s launch, the campaign has said.
Only 6% of African American voters went for Trump in the 2016 election, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Trump’s message to black voters in that campaign was: “What have you got to lose?” Supporters now say they have a record to point to, including the low black unemployment rate and investments in historically black colleges and universities.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll of African Americans in early January found that 90% disapprove of Trump’s job performance and 83% say Trump is racist.
Laying it all in Trump’s lap is unfair, said Carol Swain, an advisory board member to the national Black Voices for Trump.
“With Trump, he has pushed the American nationalist identity that I think tamps down the kind of conflicts we would have,” said Swain, who is black and has taught political science at Vanderbilt and Princeton universities. “He has pushed patriotism over race and that benefits our country.”
Faith Morris, chief marketing and external affairs officer for the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, doesn’t see it that way.
“It’s definitely a white America. A black America. A Hispanic America,” Morris said. “And there’s a very broken line that connects the different Americas. In 2020, we still feel the oppressive issues that Dr. King fought against. He focused on the same things we’re focusing on now.”
Jacob Sklarsky recently read a book about King and the civil rights movement to students in his second-grade Chicago Public Schools class.
“To look at the faces of young black kids who are sometimes hearing about this history for the first time, they are distressed by it,” said Sklarsky, who is white and a member of KAM Isaiah Israel, a Jewish congregation in Chicago.
“They were very relieved at the end because, in a way, it was all worth it,” Sklarsky said. “It gives us some hope, but it’s also very sad that we’re not anywhere near what King dreamed of.”
LUTES TAKEOVER WHEN: 5 to 8 p.m. WHERE: Lutes Casino, 221 S. Main St. GOING ON: The Yuma Writers Consortium is raising funds to attend the 2020 Tucson Festival of Books INFO: 928-259-4350
BRIDGE TOURNAMENT
WHEN: 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. WHERE: Hampton Inn & Suites, 1600 E. 16th St. GOING ON: The Yuma Sunshine Sectional bridge club will hold a scent-free bridge tournament; never ending cookies provided COST: $10 session INFO: Wayne and Cathy Stewart,
BRIDGE TOURNAMENT
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. (See Jan. 23)
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY WORKSHOP WHEN: 4 p.m. WHERE: Main Library, 2951 S. 21st Drive GOING ON: Discussion about the benefits of physical activity, learn simple ways to increase your daily activity; topics include nutrition, relationships with food, healthy eating habits and how other aspects of our daily lives can impact our food choices; free
“UNITY”
(See Jan. 23)