Norwich MLK program offers history lesson and look ahead
Annual event goes virtual, highlighted by speeches, prayers
Norwich — Video images and audio of a century of civil rights struggles and violence across the country interspersed with past local and national marches replaced the traditional live Martin Luther King Jr. Day march through downtown Norwich streets on Monday.
The virtual ceremony also included emotionally charged speeches, prayers and musical interludes reflecting those same struggles old and new.
For those who watched supporters of President Donald Trump storm the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 in an effort to disrupt the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the Nov. 3 election, Monday’s keynote speaker attorney Lonnie Braxton offered a history lesson.
In 1874, in New Orleans, then the capital of Louisiana, the dominant, conservative southern Democratic Party fully expected to keep its strong hold on the state governor’s office. But thousands of newly eligible African American voters tipped the scales and the Republican candidate won.
“Over 5,000 Democrats got together and overpowered the militia and the metropolitan police department of New Orleans, and took the armory, the state house and the city basically, all of downtown,” Braxton said, “held an inauguration to install their own governor in his seat.”
The insurrection went on for three days before federal troops arrived to quell the violence. But more than 100 people were killed or wounded, Braxton said. The New Orleans Democrats leading the charge were called the Crescent City White League and were mostly Confederate Civil War veterans. No one was ever prosecuted, Braxton said.
He went on to summarize clashes over the next nearly 150 years, including one street brawl between African American and white soldiers returning from World War I in downtown New London in 1919.
Looking to the future, Braxton urged adults and youths alike to seek out the truth and reliable information from credible sources to take their stands.
“As young people of today say, ‘time’s up,’” Braxton said. “Time is almost up. If we cannot all sit down at the table of brotherhood and figure out something, we’re all going to be lost. So, I am suggesting we arm ourselves with information. We arm ourselves with the things that Dr. King expressed daily. We have to trust, we have to love, and we have to have the power of knowledge if we want to keep this country. As Benjamin Franklin said, we formed a nation, can we keep it? In the last two months we have been really asked that question in earnest.”
U.S. Rep Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, cited King’s final book, “Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?” and praised the Norwich NAACP and youth leaders for their peaceful marches and rallies and the community engagement efforts with local police that remain ongoing.
Both Courtney and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., recalled longtime civil rights activist and Georgia U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17, 2020. Courtney said Lewis loved the U.S. Capitol building and would have been “outraged” at its desecration Jan. 6. Blumenthal invoked Lewis’ call for people to get involved in “good trouble” to affect change.
Norwich Alderman Derell Wilson, who grew up being active in the NAACP Robertsine Duncan Youth Council, recalled marching “peacefully” with his late twin brother, Terell Wilson, and 700 other NAACP youth members in Washington, D.C., in July 2006 in support of the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. He called to the young people in Monday’s audience to make a difference, as well.
“Over the course of the last 10 months as an alderman and as a young Black man here in this community, I have been blessed to watch our youth in action,” Wilson said. “I watched former students organize some of the largest protests we’ve seen in this city around police brutality, the George Floyd killing and systemic racism issues in our communities.”
Wilson said he watched his little sister stand and march, and said he attended every Norwich protest, and saw young people host political debates and hold voter registration drives. He said as they get older, the city will need them to run for office and to hold political leaders accountable.
“Young people, you have a superpower,” Wilson said. “And that superpower is change. When you band together in unity and have a solid message, change comes.”