Lawmakers commemorate slain civil rights leader

HARTFORD — “Where are the giants?” The voice belonged to an elderly man, so weak he could barely stand. He laid a hand on the arm of the Rev. Robert Perry.

“We used to have great giants among us,” the man told the Stamford priest. “You know Dr. King was the greatest of the giants I ever saw. But where are the giants? Because when I look around our nation, all I can see is darkness.”

Ahead of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Perry shared this story with 60 Connecticut legislators and clergymen at the Capitol on Tuesday. He spoke of King’s monumental legacy of activism, nonviolence and faith and urged them to look out for the country’s emerging leaders of whom “God is still speaking.”

King, 39, was shot and killed in Memphis, Tenn., as he stood on a hotel balcony on April 4, 1968, while supporting a sanitation workers strike in the city.

Perry, who heads Stamford’s Union Baptist Church, met the renowned civil rights leader a few years before his death.

“There was a magnetism about him,” Perry said. “The calm, collected spirit that he had. A smile of gentleness, a smile that let people know that this was genuine.”

Church leaders and lawmakers said there is still much do to carry on King’s work.

“We come to bring attention to our pain,” said the Rev. Lindsay Curtis, president of the Connecticut State Baptist Convention.

“That in 2018 — that in 2018 — that in 2018,” he stressed, “we are still dealing with issues of inequality, still dealing with issues of fair and adequate housing, still dealing with issues of police brutality, still dealing with issues of fair funding for equal education for our children — specifically our black and brown children.”

In a ceremony full of song and prayer, members of the General Assembly’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, including Rep. Chris Rosario, D-Bridgeport, Rep. Charlie Stallworth, D-Bridgeport, and Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, said they would pick up King’s baton.

“When you move together — united — you can move mountains,” said Rosario, chairman of the caucus.

King marched down Main Street in Hartford with the grandfather of House Majority Leader Matthew Ritter, D-Hartford, Ritter said Tuesday. He urged legislators to apply King’s principles and goals to the House and Senate work for the rest of the session.

“If this (ceremony) can serve beyond remembering and commemorating one of the greatest men in the history of our world, it can also serve as a platform and springboard for what we have to do between now and May 9,” the end of the legislative session, he said.

Emilie Munson / Hearst Connecticut Media The Rev. Robert Perry, of Union Baptist Church in Stamford, gave a keynote speech at the Capitol in Hartford on Tuesday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on Thursday.

Jerry Click / Houston Chronicle The Rev. Robert Perry, of Union Baptist Church in Houston, marches in the days following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.