Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 January 2003 — Page 4
PAGE A4
THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2003
Many events for MLK Day
Stall Report The nation will celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday with many events honoring the legacy oftheeivil rights leader. Like the rest of the country. Indianapolis will join in activities honoring King. Following are some of events scheduled in the area:
The IUPUI Black Student Union is celebrating the life of Dr. King with their ,'J.T 1 Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dinner. The celebration will take place Jan 20 at the Indiana Roof Ballroom located at 140 W. Washington St. at <i p.m. The featured speaker will he chair of the NAACF, Roslyn M. Brock. The ticket price is for the general public. For more information call 274-.‘W31.
The 10 th Annual Father, Son, Men & Boys Breakfast will take place Jan 20, at George Washington Community School. 221f> W. Washington St., beginning at 9 a.m. until 1pm. This year's theme, “A time for peace: stop hatin’," is a continuation of the non-violence approach used by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The breakfast will target 1,000 males and will detail the impact of guns on our youth and young adults while encouraging them to use non-violent behavior. The I nd napolis/MarionCountycommunity is invited to attend. • • • • • Martin University will beholding a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration Jan. 20 at 10 a.m. in the Gathertorium at 2171 Avondale
Place.
The Macalester College Concert Choir of St. Paul. Minn., will perform a free concert at Fairview Presbyterian Church, 4609 N. Capitol Ave., on Jan 20 beginning at 7 p.m. Dr. Robert L. Morris, a noted arranger of AfricanAmerican spirituals, will conduct the choir. For more information contact John Koppitch at 2512245.
The Children’s Museum of I ndianapolis is celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day with free admission. Programs and music will he available to educate families about the messages and leadership of Dr. King. The celebration begins at 10 a.m. and will bust until 5 p.m. at the museum, 3300 N. Meridian St. For more information call 334-3322.
All Indianapolis Border bookstores are celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a special event for kids Jan 20, beginning at 2 p.m. Families are welcome to join in this special storytime honoring Dr. King. Borders will read books about Dr. King’s life and explore unity with their “Dream Quilt" craft. Everyonewill participatein makingthe quilt and it will be on display in the children’s department. For more information contact Erin Vargo Haworth at (734) 2765090. • • • • • The Peace Learning Center is sponsoring two Martin Luther King Jr. events for the entire family. The 6' 1 ' Annual Martin Luther King Day will take place Jan 20at
the Murat Center in the Egyptian Ballroom, 502 N. New’ Jersey St. There will be art and educational workshops from 9:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. A public ceremony and celebration with live music, performance, dignitary speeches, and community awards will take place from 4 - 5:30 p.m. Registration is required for the workshops. For more information and to register,. call 327-7144. • • • • • The Hendricks County Alliance for Diversity will sponsor a free, inaugural celebration in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The program will be Jan 20 at 6 p. m. The program will be hosted by UUCC, 95 N. Jefferson, in Danville and will be followed by a free soup and bread supper. The featured speaker will be Rev. Edward Harris. Children are welcome and free child care will be provided. For more information call 718-0297 or 745-2047.
On the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Patricia J. Williams, a professor oflaw at Columbia University and a leading constitutional scholar on the rights of minorities and women will speak in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The event will be Jan 20 at 6 p.m. in Whittenberger Auditorium. • • • • • The Martin Luther King MultiService Center will celebrate the legacy of Dr. King with the recognition of community leaders. Congresswoman Julia Carson and several others will be recognized for “living the legacy" of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the 5 ,h an-
nual King Celebration on Jan 17 beginning at 3 p.m. The celebration is open to the public and will take place at the Martin Luther King Jr. Multi-Service Center, 40 W. 40 ,h St. For more information contact P. Diane Jackson at 9234581 • • • • • Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School will present its 10 ,h annual Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration Jan 17 beginning at 10:15 a.m. The celebration will take place in the gymnasium and features guest speaker Dr. Forrest Samual Carter Jr. This memorial will also include readings from Dr. King’s speeches and a variety of musical groups including BrebeuFs Wind Ensemble, Brebeuf s student choir, and The Oaks Academy choir. For more information contact Bev Gallagher at 870-2751. • • • • • The Indiana State Museum will celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King J r. by offering free admission with a canned good. The museum is located at 650 W. Washington St. in White River State Park downtown. • • • • • The Indianapolis Youth Minister Alliance presents Cross Culture in the spirit of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The celebration is for youth ages 12-18 on Jan. 19 in the Arlington High School Auditorium, 4825 N. Arlington Ave. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the program will start at 6:30 p.m. For more information contact Pastor Ramon Batts at 538-5012.
Indiana lawyers honor MLK holiday
By SHANNON WILLIAMS Recorder Editor “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?" The above is a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He un-
derstood the importance of helping others and so does the Indiana State Bar Association. On Jan. 20, nearly 150 attorneys from across Indiana will be on hand to provide free legal information to the public. The at-
torneys are participating in a special program titled, “Talk to a Lawyer Today.” The program is held in honor of Dr. King. “Lawyers take an oath when they are sworn in to defend the oppressed and the weak,” said
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Celebrating 108 years of service to the community
Patty McKinnon, a local attorney who is participating in the program. “This project is a way we see to fulfill that promise to the public and that’s why we’re doing
it.”
All the lawyers participating in
the program volunteered their own time. In preparation for the day-long event, they were given a manual that listed commonly asked questions about
Indiana law. McKinnon
said that so many lawyers were ex-
Luther King Jr cited about the
program and wanted to partici-
pate that the Indiana State Bar Association “had more lawyers signing up then well actually need
for the day.”
Chrishanna Gibson, an Indianapolis native who plans on attending the event says that the thought process behind the program should be commended. “The fact that they are followingin Dr. King’s footsteps is good. It’s not always about what you can get from somebody else. It’s more like what can you do to help someone else. These lawyers will be helping a lot of people on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and that’s wonderful," said Gibson. Anyone interested in speaking w ith a lawyer on Jan. 20, can call (800) 266-2581 from 9 a.m. -5 p.m. Indianapolis residents can talk to lawyers in person at the Julia Carson Government Center. Individuals planning on going to the Carson Center should take any paperwork pci taining to the questions they plan to ask. lawyers will he available at the following locations: • Indianapolis: Julia Carson Government Center, 300 E. Fall Creek Parkway, 3-7 p.m. • Gary: Genesis Center Plaza, 4' 1 ' and Broadway, 9 a.m. -3 p.m. • Evansville: Call in only at (800)994-2169. • Fort Wayne: Volunteer lawyer Program Office, .904 S. Calhoun St., 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. • South Bend: The Century Center, 120 S. St. Joseph St.,
lla.m.-5p.rn.
By Cable News Network On Monday, Americans will observe a national holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader whose legacy continues undimmed many years after his visionary “I Have a Dream Speech.” King broke onto the national civil rights scene in 1955 as the organizer of the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala. Seamstress Rosa Parks provided the catalyst for the demonstration when she refused to give her seat up to a white passenger. Parks’ courage, combined with King’s leadership, sparked aboycott that would eventually change the nation. “We have a legitimate protest. And we feel also that one of the great glories of American democracy is that we have the right to protest our rights,” King said at the time. “We will do it in an orderly fashion. This is a non-violent protest and we are depending on moral and spiritual forces, using methods of passive resistance,” he said. During the 13-month boycott, Blacks avoided the buses, walking instead or deciding to carpool. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that Alabama’s laws on racial segregation were illegal. “This morning, the longawaited mandate from the United States Supreme Court concerning bus segregation came to Montgomery,” Kingsaid. “This mandate expresses in terms that are crystal clear that segregation in public transportation is legally and socially invalid.” Building on the success of the Alabama bus boycott, King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957 and became a follower of India’s leader Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy of non-violence. By the late 1950s, King had become a national figure with a national platform. “We have people coming in from all over the country. I suspect we will have representatives from every state in the union and naturally a large number of people from the state of Alabama. And we hope to see and we plan to see the greatest witness for freedom ever taken place on the steps of any capital of the South,” King said in a speech at the time. King’s arrest and resulting four-month prison sentence on a minor traffic offense in I960 may have been a key factor in the presidential race between Vice President Richard Nixon and Sen. John F. Kennedy. President Dwight Eisenhower refused to get involved in the case, calling it a state matter. But Kennedy, apparently seeing a political opening, interceded on King’s behalf and won his release from jail. With the endorsement of King’s father, Black voters moved into Kennedy’s column, helping him to win the presidential race by a mere 100,000 votes several days later. King’s civil rights movement reached its zenith between I960 and 1965, when legislation was passed to end racial segregation in public facilities and expanding voting rights. But those victories came at a cost, and many whites still resisted the changes. In Alabama, police used fire hoses and dogs to try to stop King and his supporters from staging a protest march against segregation. President Lyndon Johnson called the violence by local officials an outrage, and called in National Guard and Army units to protect the marchers. “These forces should be adequate to help meet the rights of citizens to walk peaceably and safely without injury or loss of
life from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama,” Johnson said. It was also in Alabama that King wrote his eloquent letters from a jail in Birmingham, after one of countless arrests: “You may well ask: Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path? You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Non-violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue so it can no longer be ignored. We know through painftil experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed.” King’s finest moment may have come at an interracial assembly at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28,1963, when he called out, “Let freedom ring.” “From every village and hamlet, every state, every city we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children - Black men, white men, Jews, Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants - will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I am free at last,” King said. Just one year after this landmark speech, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And with this, he now had an international stage. Despite his international profile, more strident forces in the civil rights movement claimed King was too willing to compromise, and his insistence on nonviolence was increasingly being questioned by younger and more militant leaders. Over time, King expanded his mission to include other issues than racism and he began to speak out against the Vietnam war and poverty. On the last trip of his life, King traveled to Memphis to support the city’s striking garbage workers, who were demanding a raise and better working conditions. > And once again he spoke of his vision for a racially colorblind society. “I’ve been to the mountaintop. I don’t mind. Like anyone I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I am not concerned with that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he has allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I have looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land.” King died in a Memphis hospital on April 4, 1968, after being shot at the Lorraine Motel by a sniper. But the work he had begun as a college student would continue and King's legacy lives on. And SCLC co-founder Rev. Joseph I .owery commented: “Whetheror not history in the future will produce anothersuch leader remains to be seen. 1 doubt it. Because the times have changed. Martin was the right man, with the right talents, at the right time.” King often said he never wanted people to talk about his Nobel Peace Prize and other accomplishments. Rather, he said, he wanted to be remembered its “a drum major” in the struggle for justice, peace and righteousness for all people.