Remembering the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Marchers gathered on a cold morning today to walk from Martin Luther King Boulevard to First Church of Christ on Court Street in Middletown. There, the roughly 300 people assembled for a service honoring the memory of the slain civil rights leader were told America has come far, but still has far to go.

Using portions of the Rev. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” keynote speaker Sonia BasSheva Manjon, vice president for institution partnership and chief diversity officer at Wesleyan University, outlined some of the challenges.

The winner of a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the Rev. King’s leadership in advocating for a nonviolent end to racial discrimination earned him a place in a pantheon of American heroes. Yet official acknowledgement of those achievements in this country have been grudging, Manjon said.

King was assassinated in April 4, 1968. It was another 15 years before Congress would adopt – and a president sign – an act designating Jan. 17 as Martin Luther King Day, she said. Only 17 states took part in the first official commemoration in 1986, she said. The last state to recognize the holiday – New Hampshire – did so in 1999.

The corporate reception has been even cooler, Manjon said. A recent survey of America’s largest corporations found that three in 10 give most or all their workers a paid holiday on Martin Luther King day, she said. In 1993, that figure was 24 percent; in 1986, 14 percent.

By the end of his career, King’s agenda had expended to ending poverty. His definition of “true compassion,” Manjon noted, was not “flinging a coin at a beggar,” but addressing the flaws of a system that creates them. Yet 43.6 million Americans are living in poverty today, the highest number in more than 50 years, she said.

More than 20 percent of children live in poverty, she said. And a third of all third-graders attending urban public schools will drop out of high school.

Nearly 16 percent of African-Americans are unemployed, she said – twice the rate among whites. Still more people have given up looking for work, or are underemployed and unable to make ends meet.

Yet Wall Street, which only two years ago ruined the economy and was saved by “Main Street,” had one of its best quarters ever, she said.

King would “not have been impressed with America’s CEOs today,” she said, likening the values of corporate America to “spiritual black holes in an amoral universe.”

The service also include a rousing performance by Shiloh Missionary Church’s Praise Team and inspiring performances by young writers, artists and dancers from Oddfellows Playhouse and Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church.

Monday’s event was the 18th annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday sponsored by the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Committee of Greater Middletown Inc.