Diversity on display for Martin Luther King

Herbert Jones, a deacon at Eastside Baptist Church in Tacoma, has attended every Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration sponsored by the city of Tacoma. What started as exclusively an African American event, he said, has transformed into a worldly affair.

Jones, 68, of Spanaway, is pleased.

“The more you diversify things and bring people together, the better the community is being served,” said Jones, a retired soldier who learned of King’s assassination while serving in Vietnam.

From the theme, “This Land – Our Land,” to its first-ever non-black keynote speaker, the 23rd annual event at the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall on Monday illustrated the global reach of King’s legacy of social change through nonviolence and his message of racial equality and social justice. More than 3,200 people attended the event, said Jacqueline Strong Moss, its executive producer.

The entertainment spanned styles and countries. Steel drummers opened the event with a traditional African song, followed later by a dance of the Unangan, the native people of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Keanna Mendoza, a Filipino American, sang “Dear Dr. King,” while Tasia Ann Thomas sang “Hey! I’m Here,” a remembrance for the people of Haiti, still recovering from the devastating earthquake a year ago.

In the lobby, a 2,000-square-foot traveling exhibit, “A Legacy of Creating Peace,” chronicled the lives and messages of three pillars of the nonviolence movement: King, an African American Christian; Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian Hindu; and Daisaku Ikeda, a Japanese Buddhist. The exhibit has been seen in more than 30 countries by more than 1 million people, said Lawrence Carter Sr., a religion professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta and the exhibit’s founder.

“They have left on the kitchen table a compass and a roadmap for us to leave the world better than we found it,” he told the audience.

Speakers, including elected leaders, said the nation and world have made great strides in realizing King’s dream of equality for all, but more needs to be done.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said King inspired people throughout the world to stand up for social justice, equality and basic human rights.

“Dr. King confronted hate, spoke of hope and transformed America,” she said. “Through direct action and penetrating vision and bold leadership, he forced our nation and its people to acknowledge injustice.”

Cantwell also used the opportunity to laud President Barack Obama’s health care reforms and call for more investment in the nation’s youth.

Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy, noting the nation’s economic troubles and the recent Tucson shooting that has draw attention to the negativity in political discourse, said, “It’s times like these that we need Dr. King the most.”

The civil rights leader “told us to arm ourselves with knowledge and love and to go out into this world, to go out of this realm, and to fight for good, to fight for the good that’s within our hearts, and to make that dream a reality in the world around us. And this calling has not changed,” McCarthy said.

The keynote speaker, Eric Liu, an author and educator who served as the deputy domestic policy adviser for former President Bill Clinton, said King embodied what he characterized as “great citizenship,” which he defined as “how are you showing up for one another.”

He was critical of what he called “this outdated gospel of rugged individualism, every man for himself” and a culture of “get yours now.” He said that “we are all accomplices to a crime that has unfolded” over three decades so that now 1 percent of Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 95 percent of citizens.

“That’s just not right,” he said. “When Dr. King died, he wasn’t fighting only for civil rights. … When Dr. King died, he gave his life, he gave his voice to a cause of economic justice as well.”

Tacoma City Councilwoman Victoria Woodards presented this year’s MLK Community Service Award to the Tacoma Urban League Guild for its work in improving the lives of low-income and minority residents.

Exiting the Exhibition Hall, Tacoma resident Regina Jordan said she appreciated the event’s growing diversity. She has attended the birthday celebration every year since 2001, and on Monday was accompanied by her sister, an aunt and two sons.

“I like all the ethnic backgrounds coming together and enjoying this wonderful event,” she said.

Christian Hill: 253-274-7390
christian.hill@thenewstribune.com

What: A traveling exhibit titled “Gandhi, King, Ikeda: A Legacy of Creating Peace” includes photographs, quotes and facts about Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Daisaku Ikeda.

Where: The Academic Building on the University of Washington Tacoma campus, 1900 Commerce St.

When: 7 a.m.-10 p.m., today-Thursday; 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday; and all day Saturday.

More information: www.morehouse.edu/about/chapel/peace_exhibit/exhibit/index.html