Honoring the legacy of a civil rights hero

Parishes prepare to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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PROVIDENCE — As Martin Luther King Jr. Day approaches, Catholics around Rhode Island are preparing to celebrate the legacy of the nonviolence advocate and Baptist minister who fought tirelessly for civil and human rights.

According to Patty January, coordinator of the Office of Black Catholic Ministry for the Diocese of Providence, several parishes in the Providence area, including Holy Name of Jesus, St. Patrick’s and St. Michael’s, will commemorate the day with a special celebration of Mass. In addition to the regular readings, the Mass program will include a short biography of King’s life and excerpts from some of his most famous speeches, including “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” delivered one day prior to his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place,” King told the crowd during his final speech. “But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”

January said that while many parishes in the Providence area have traditionally held a Mass to commemorate the civil rights leader, she hopes other parishes throughout the diocese will be encouraged to honor his legacy in their liturgies and celebrations. The Office of Black Catholic Ministry develops Mass programs to assist parishes in honoring holidays of significance to the African American community observed throughout the year, including Black History Month in February and National Black Catholic History Month in November.

“This is my hope for doing the Mass celebration — that more parishes in the diocese will begin to use the celebration to bring awareness to the civil rights movement [and] what King fought for for every human being,” said January.

Here in Rhode Island, several locations have the distinction of once hosting the famous orator and activist. In October of 1966, King visited the University of Rhode Island, where he delivered a speech as part of a student-organized lecture series. A photo featured in the 1967 student yearbook shows King at a podium against the backdrop of a large American flag.

“In the meeting of mind with mind, we learn never to expect a satisfactory answer from others until we are courageous enough to ask ourselves the right questions,” he told the students.

King also visited Providence, speaking at Brown University in 1960 and again on April 23, 1967, less than a year prior to his assassination. His 1967 speech, delivered before a crowd of 1,100 in Sayles Hall, emphasized the link between racial and economic disparity and criticized American involvement in Vietnam.

“We now have the resources and facilities to get rid of poverty, but the question is – do we have the will?” King asked, as quoted in the following day’s issue of the Brown Daily Herald.

King’s legacy continues to be felt strongly in Providence, where residents recall both the increased opportunities for individuals of color brought about through his work and the continued challenges to his dream of equality.

“His legacy basically is opportunity,” said James Vincent, president of the Providence branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, during a phone interview. “Opportunity and equal access to institutions. It’s really in all areas of life. And we have challenges now more than ever before on things that were important to him.”

Vincent said King’s work was instrumental in bringing about educational opportunities in his own life. He grew up in Boston’s South End, where he remembers mourning King’s death as a teenager, and later attended Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania.

“I got a golden opportunity and I took it and I can never forget if not for people like Martin Luther King my life would’ve been totally different,” he said.

For January, King’s work to desegregate the public school systems of the South had a life-changing impact on her childhood experience. Growing up in New Orleans in the 1960s, she lived through the beginnings of integration and remembers the tensions that made their way into all parts of life, even the Catholic faith.

“My experience of faith is so different coming from the South than it is here,” she said. “At that time, there was the desegregation transition.”

January said her family was one of the first African American families to attend a formerly all-white church after moving to a new neighborhood off Desire Street. She remembers going to school with the younger siblings of Ruby Bridges, the young girl who in 1960 became the first African-American child to attend a formerly all-white elementary school in the South, and the hostility of white parents at the time.

“Those times were very scary times. Those times were times of much unrest.”

Though their parents tried to shield January and her siblings from the worst of the era, she still remembers learning of King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, and the impact on the African American community as the news spread.

“The one thing I remember is that when Martin Luther King was killed, I came home from school and my father was sitting on the steps and tears were coming down his face,” she said. “People throughout the community were mourning and sad.”

Returning to New Orleans today, she said, January finds that while things are changing, much of the separation of the communities remains the same. She hopes that through her work with the Office of Black Catholic Ministry, she can encourage parish communities in Rhode Island to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and bring awareness to the black Catholic experience in the Church.

“The most important legacy that Martin Luther King and all those who fought in the civil rights movement — Gandhi, Nelson Mandela — the most important right that came out of that was to treat every human being with respect and honor,” she said.