Under the baobab: State College area celebrated Martin Luther King’s legacy with week of events
Happy Martin Luther King Week.
The Forum on Black Affairs (FOBA) revived a dormant tradition by holding the annual MLK Dinner, “A Testament of Hope,” on Jan. 15 at the Bryce Jordan Center. The live event had been on hiatus during the pandemic quarantine. Led by FOBA President Andre L. Culbreath and immediate Past President Dr. Stephanie Danette Preston, the 48th Annual MLK Banquet was sold out and celebrated by hundreds of local celebrities, students, staff, faculty and townies. All were “dressed to the nines.” Other members of the banquet committee included Holly Sterner, Shannon Holiday, Lisa Carper, Dr. Suzanne Adair, Jamie Carpenter and Dr. Marcus Whitehurst.
Tim Benally, a Navajo grad student, gave the land acknowledgment. Rev. Paul McReynolds, pastor of Albright Bethune United Methodist Church, gave the invocation. Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi gave the keynote address focusing on the important meaning of MLK in her ancestral homeland of India. Director of Adult Learner Programs and Services, Leslie Laing, was presented the FOBA Humanitarian Award by Dr. Suzanne Adair. The wonderful buffet dinner kicked off a weeklong series of events that highlighted MLK’s legacy of activism.
The official holiday was Monday, a Day of Service, commemorated at the HUB/Robeson Center with activities including preparing care packages for military service members, making posters for the March for Peace, packaging meals for the rise against hunger, and creating bookmarks for children. The coordinator was Yana Harris. On Tuesday at the HUB there was “Evening of Prose, Poetry, and Performance.”
On Wednesday there was a March for Peace, organized by Gary Abdullah, leader of the MLK Plaza Committee; Sita Frederick, director of the Center for Performing Arts, and other members of the MLK Commemoration Committee. A hundred or so students, faculty and community members walked from the HUB to the Martin Luther King Plaza on Fraser Street. They stopped at Old Main, where Laing rallied the crowd. At the plaza, State College Mayor Ezra Nanes gave a welcoming speech and honored Barbara Farmer, the outgoing chair of the plaza committee. Later Jesse Barlow, president of the State College Borough Council, spoke to the crowd about the need for continuing commitment.
Mwenso and The Shakes presented several celebratory music programs: “Night Time Is the Right Time” at the HUB on Thursday, a community jam session at 3 Dots Downtown on Friday. On Saturday they joined Dr. Tony Leach, Essence of Joy, the Morgan State University Choir directed by Eric Conway, the State College and Bellefonte high school choirs, directed by Erik Clayton and Eric Brinser, for a choral tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King. Also on Saturday the State College Friends School presented a community art exhibit, “The Time Is Always Right.”
I first saw MLK in person at the 1963 March on Washington, the site of the “I Have a Dream” speech. I first met him four years later, 1967, in Miami at the organizing conference for the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC). It was after 1964 Mississippi Summer, the 1965 Selma March, and his coming out against the Vietnam War. King had shifted his focus to economic issues like the Sanitation Workers Strike in Memphis and the PPC. He was assassinated before he had a chance to complete his work on the PPC. His wife, Coretta Scott King, and Rev. Abernathy did carry on. We set up Resurrection City, a bunch of tents on the mall in Washington, D.C. We planned to camp there to lobby Congress to create programs to assist the poor and the working poor. Instead we got the police tearing it down and the Tet offensive in Vietnam. Then Sen. Robert Kennedy, the leading Democratic party presidential candidate, was gunned down in LA.
We have scaled a mountain; this was the valley from which we climbed.