Provoking Action: MLK Day 2023

Harmony School of Music leads the gathering in song

Cedar Rapids' annual Martin Luther King Day celebration included calls for involvement as well as coming together as a community. The observance returned to St. Paul's United Methodist Church after three years online due to the pandemic. 

Gathering for the service

Pastors Keeyon and Stephanie Carter, who started Wellington Heights Community Church in 2020, received the Dr. Percy & Lileah Harris "Who Is My Neighbor" Award. Gentine Nzoyikorera, a senior at Kennedy High School, received the student award. The eleven-member planning committee was recognized; many of them have helped put on quite a number of these celebrations.

The day also featured an afternoon tornado touching down near Monticello, a bizarre event for January in the northern Midwest.

Tony Loyal told the story of his great-grandmother
in Jim Crow era Mississippi

Throughout the evening, the emphasis remained on the need for activity, moreso than the nature of the persistent evils against which we need to act. Betty Johnson of First Light Christian Fellowship noted "we're more and more and more divided," which if unchanged "the harder and the further we will fall." Maybe in such a supportive gathering--Cedar Rapids really puts its best face forward at these events--specifying what we're fighting is unnecessary? Or maybe the evils are so widespread and pervasive they're obvious to everybody. Perry Bacon Jr. wrote in today's Washington Post that "the so-called racial reckoning" in the wake of the murder of George Floyd "has not resulted in much real, deep policy change--and there are few signs that it will anytime soon." Bacon continues:

American police officers killed more people in 2022 than any year over the past decade, according to data compiled by the group Mapping Police Violence.... The bold policy changes touted by activists in the summer of 2020, such as drastically reducing government spending on policing and reallocating that money for housing assistance and other programs that would disproportionately benefit Black people, not only have no chance of being passed nationally but are a non-starter even in many blue cities and states. There is no real public discussion of... policies that would be necessary to improve conditions for Black Americans on a broad scale.

To which I'll add there are so many distractions--some unavoidable, and some I daresay intentional.

Gentine Nzoyikorera, President of Black Student Union
at Kennedy High School

In light of this continual cycle of hope and frustration, Tamara Marcus of Advocates for Social Justice said she has learned from older activists as well as her own experience that "this work is hard and defeats will happen," and counseled younger activists not to give into despair or anger, but to "love even harder" in the face of defeat. Gentine Nzoyikorera noted that her school's Black Student Union had only four members when it confronted the Cedar Rapids School Board about the police presence in the school, but gained a hearing because they actively sought allies. Keeyon Carter urged people to "continue to do the good work but don't forget relationship" that goes deeper than accomplishing specific tasks. Lori Ampey of Tanager Place concluded the speeches by calling for inclusion, non-judgment, and perseverance across ages, sexual orientations, and mental health: "Leave here today with the intent of finding something to do."

Pastors Keeyon and Stephanie Carter and their family;
longtime activist Anne Harris Carter is at left

The bottom line, in the words of former African American Museum of Iowa Director Tom Moore, is that Dr. King would be pleased at the progress since the 1960s but "we still have a long way to go." This annual gathering reminds us there are a lot of people in Cedar Rapids, fully in the face of cynicism and disillusionment, fighting a lot of evils. One of them might be your new best friend!

Mt. Zion Youth Explosion Dance Team

Some of the organizations represented at the service

Earlier today, Coe College students gathered to transcribe
Freedmen's Bureau documents for the Smithsonian Institution

SEE ALSO: "Onlining About Redlining: MLK Day 2022," 18 January 2022

Grace King, "On King Day, Meet 'Who Is My Neighbor?'" Cedar Rapids Gazette, 16 January 2023, 1A, 9A