Martin Luther King Jr. honored in Greenwich
Inaugural Town Hall-sponsored celebration brings together all ages
GREENWICH — For an event that had to be postponed because of bad weather, Greenwich’s inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. event Thursday still drew nearly 50 people to the Cone Room at Town Hall to recognize the civil rights icon.
Local churches, nonprofit organizations and community groups have all held celebrations of King’s life in the past, but this was the first time that Greenwich’s town government hosted an event to recognize King and his affect on U.S. history and individuals more than half a century after his assassination in 1968.
The Rev. Thomas Nins of First Baptist Church told the audience that King helped combine and focus the civil rights struggle that began before he was born.
“King took all these moving parts, these individual instruments, if you will, and he brought them together,” Nins said. “He brought them together and created a new musical score for America. The score he created called for the civil rights and individual dignity of all people.”
Nins said King is foundational to social justice and human rights, just as jazz music helped define all future forms of music. Nins called King, “the Duke Ellington of civil rights and the drum major of social justice.”
MLK Day was on Monday. The town was scheduled to celebrate the event Tuesday, but rescheduled the gathering to Thursday because of icy road conditions and snow earlier in the week.
Nins said the town is not a
stranger to celebrating King. He noted that in years past, there used to be a King event at Christ Church followed by a gathering across the street at the YWCA to further discuss King’s life. The YWCA continued that tradition this year by hosting a conversation about inequity and access in Greenwich.
Nins and others on Thursday reflected on what King means to them and how his work is still shaping the world, including comments from some Old Greenwich School students.
“Without Martin Luther King, I might not have met some of my friends because I’d probably be in a different school,” Lukas Wurmuth, a fifth grader in Barbara Isaacson’s class, said.
Five other members of Isaacson’s class also spoke, including Cole Chu, Austin Berendowski, Sean Williamson and Kellan O’Connor, who told the crowd that she studied Supreme Court cases that affected King’s life.
Fifth grader Kylie Rich said she learned about Ruby Bridges, the first Black student to integrate an elementary school in the South in 1960.
“She stood up for what she believed in and inspired many people, which is what I want to do in my life,” Kylie said.
First Selectman Fred Camillo, State Sen. Ryan Fazio and Selectperson Janet Stone McGuigan delivered remarks during the event; several other elected officials and town department heads were also in attendance.
Camillo, a former history teacher, said he wanted to host a celebration of King’s legacy ever since he was elected in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the plan, but Camillo said he hopes it becomes an annual tradition.
“If you get up one day and just do one thing that makes somebody’s life better, you’ve had a good day. That’s a pretty good day for everybody,” Camillo said to the crowd. “Martin Luther King certainly gave us a lot of those days.”
Ruby Durant, who used to work with the town’s registrars of voters, said she remembers when King was assassinated when she was a teenager.
She led the crowd in singing ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ and ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ a hymn written by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson that is known by some as the Black national anthem.