The legacy of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was celebrated Monday at an annual program at Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church.
As in past years the event held on Martin Luther King Day holiday was sponsored by NAACP Ansonia Branch 2000.
King was assassinated April 4, 1968 at age 39.
New Haven-based civil rights lawyer Michael Jefferson, keynote speaker, talked about a different Martin Luther King than has been portrayed by image makers in Hollywood.
“Oftentimes truth is difficult to hear,” Jefferson said.
He said those image makers chose to give the world the Martin Luther King who delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech in August, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Jefferson said in January 1967 (during the Vietnam War era) when King was on vacation in Jamaica he “read an article about the horrific suffering of the Vietnamese people, and was particularly troubled by the suffering of Vietnamese children.”
Several months later, on April 4, 1967, Jefferson said, King delivered a speech against the Vietnam War at Riverside Church in New York City.” In it King “called America the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” he said.
The speech alienated political leaders including then President Lyndon B. Johnson
Jefferson segued into discussing several recent events. He said when Israel bombed Gaza and neighboring lands with bombs paid by U.S. taxpayer dollars, “not one member of Congress spoke out against the hurt of the Palestinian people.”
He listed several black men whose violent deaths last year were widely publicized, including Eric Garner, and Michael Brown.
“Black life is not valued to the same extent that white life is valued,” Jefferson said. He said in his work as a defense attorney in New Haven he has learned that “black communities are policed differently than white communities.”
Mistress of ceremonies Diane Stroman of Ansonia said King waged “a brave campaign against racial injustice in America.”
Ansonia Mayor David S. Cassetti said King used “a non-violent approach. He took his cue from the Gospel.”
A dozen children who are Julian A. Taylor Scholarship awardees took turns reading reflections penned by King, and Josephine McPhail led the crowd in singing the Negro National Anthem, Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.
Carl White, who said he has had a 30-year career working with adolescents, enacted his original poem It Started As a Dream. The poem contained a play on words taken from the Ferguson, Mo. police officer shooting of Michael Brown, (“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”) combined with “I Can’t Breathe.”
That is a phrase uttered by Eric Garner when New York City cops allegedly had him in a chokehold.
“Martin Luther King was not just for black folks. A lot more folks than African-Americans are reaping the benefits of (the work of) Martin Luther King,” Ansonia NAACP President Greg Johnson said.
