Music for urbanists: Lift Every Voice and Sing

James Weldon Johnson (from www.jamesweldonjohnson.org)

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us...

--JAMES WELDON JOHNSON

The African American Museum of Iowa stepped up in a big way this Martin Luther King Day. For the second year in a row, observance in Cedar Rapids was at risk of being overshadowed by events: last year by the Iowa precinct caucuses, and this year by the presidential inauguration. The A.A.M.I. provided reduced admission and child-friendly programming all day long, including displays and video documentaries.

For many years, most recently in 2023, Cedar Rapids commemorated Martin Luther King Day with an evening service at St. Paul's United Methodist Church. The highlight for me was always when everyone in attendance stood to sing "Lift Every Voice and Sing," one of my all-time favorite hymns that deserves wider usage. Like "Joy to the World," it's tied by tradition to a particular season, but its message is timeless.

Anne Harris Carter presents Mike and Toni Loyal with the 2025
Who is My Neighbor Award, as Pastor Jonathan Heifner looks on
(Sunday 1/19 at St. Paul's United Methodist Church)

"Lift Every Voice and Sing" began as a poem composed by James Weldon Johnson on the occasion of Lincoln's birthday in 1900 (PBS 2013). It was Johnson's brother, John Rosamond Johnson, who later set the poem to music with its distinctive dual melodies. 

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) was 29 when he wrote the poem that became such an enduring song. His was no "cockeyed optimist" (South Pacific reference) about racial conditions in America as he wrote his song, either; he spent much of the following two decades lobbying the federal government fort a national anti-lynching law, which was finally passed in 1919.

Johnson must have been a whirl of talent and energy, for at various times in his life he was an elementary school teacher, founder of a high school, a lawyer, a prolific composer (collaborating with his brother) for Broadway shows, author, college professor, diplomat to Venezuela and Nicaragua, and civil rights activist for the NAACP ("Civil Rights Leaders: James Weldon Johnson" n.d.).

Here is a 2009 choral version of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by the Metropolitan Baptist Church choir (5:00):

And here is a hip-hop version from Austin, Texas, performed by Doughboy the Midwest Maestro and DJ Kool Rod. A casual Internet search reveals dozens of versions in a variety of genres. It is one versatile song.

Its repeated references to past tribulations seems particularly appropriate to oppressed groups i.e. not suburban white bloggers. But the lyrics, like King's often-articulated vision, are all-inclusive: "Lift every voice and sing, let earth and heaven ring" (italics mine). We all live in hope of seeing unity; we all stand in need of redemption. It is hope well-placed, too, because only unity produces the social peace and prosperity we need to live well.

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past, Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

Martin Luther King Jr (1929-1968) at the A.A.M.I.

Martin Luther King Jr. understood the hope of unity, combined with critical thinking and endurance and empathy. So did Jimmy Carter, whose mourning period is being interrupted for Inauguration Day. Pope Francis, who's made hope the theme of the 2025 Year of Jubilee (Powell 2025), understands it as well. I'm less sure about those who have used their political office to take out after diversity efforts in schools and workplaces. Understanding the perspectives of those whose life experiences differ from the majority's seems essential to attaining unity. But they're doing their best to make "diversity, equity, and inclusion" dirty words. Is understanding all this just "woke bullshit," to quote our newly reinaugurated President?

Suburbia was/is white because of inequality and discrimination;
Who will tell this story if government threatens schools?
(Display photographed at A.A.M.I.)

Donald J. Trump, triumphantly returned to office on MLK Day itself, has thrived exclusively on disunity. Even now, he is a sore winner, utterly ungracious about the (rather favorable) conditions he inherits from his predecessor. During the awful wildfires that still rage in California, he has promoted disinformation, blasted anyone taking actual responsibility as "incompetent," and called the California governor Gavin "New-scum," which insult Newsom probably last heard in 1st grade. I was tempted to see what "weird shit" (George W. Bush's 2017 characterization) Trump would produce in the inaugural address, but decided my time would be better spent at the African American Museum.

Resist hate with love, said King
(My picture taken at A.A.M.I.)

Building the cities of the future won't be done with name-calling; it will be done with ongoing learning and persistent hard work.

Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand.

True to our God, True to our native land.

SEE ALSO: 

"MLK and the Winter of Discontent," Holy Mountain, 16 January 2024 

James Weldon Johnson Foundation page

Kristin Du Mez, "From the Spiritual Underground: Love and Justice for Nov. 20 and Beyond," Du Mez Connections, 19 January 2025

Kathryn Mobley, "West Dayton Exhibit Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr's Dayton Speech," WYSO, 20 January 2025

Pete Saunders, "CSY Replay #16: More on Segregation," Corner Side Yard, 20 January 2025

MLK and the winter of discontent

Martin Luther King Jr (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

I'm feeling quite out of sorts these days. It's an unpleasant mix of anxiety, discouragement, restlessness and rage, individually unremarkable (for me, anyway) but collectively rather potent and hard to get out from under.

Part of it's the weather. The long dark days of mid-January have this week featured two major snowfalls, followed by deeply subzero temperatures. I have been moving snow and moving snow, and then when it stopped falling, I've continued to move snow because of massive drifting. (This is not really a very good excuse, I realize, since everyone else in town has been dealing with the same weather.) Our driveway is off an alley, which the city does not regularly maintain, so for three days after the last flake fell it was still full of snow. We successfully took a car out Sunday, but got it stuck trying to get it back up the alley, which required moving a lot more snow as well as the assistance of our across-the-street neighbor Bob. There are more details in this story of woe, which I will spare you, because this blog is about place-making and community-building, which I will eventually get to.

Snow is everywhere (Photo by Jane Claspy Nesmith)

Another part of it is politics. Amid the horrors of wars in Ukraine and Gaza, we have been dealing here with the verbal frenzy that is the Iowa caucus, as Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Donald Trump tried to jones their final numbers. (For a particularly good takedown of caucus madness, see Lenz 2024.) Trump, the often-indicted, insult spewing, anti-community manchild who has become a conservative folk hero, was sure to be the winner at the caucuses, and is the probable Republican presidential nominee. He refers to his opponents as "vermin" and "enemies," and accuses immigrants of "poisoning the blood" of the country, to raucously cheering crowds. He got 53.1 percent of the general election vote in Iowa in 2020, and will probably beat that this year. Meanwhile, our Governor, Kim Reynolds, who won her last election with 59.5 percent of the vote, has been announcing initiatives like upending regional education agencies and refusing federal food aid for poor children because "childhood obesity has become an epidemic" (see Rampell 2024). She is endorsing DeSantis, the Florida governor known mainly for scapegoating refugees and using them as political props. Why do I live here again?

The caucuses themselves were scheduled, for some reason, on Martin Luther King Day itself. As a result, the usual Monday night service at St. Paul's United Methodist Church--I wrote about last year's observance here--was cancelled. I would have gone.

Grace Episcopal Church (Source: church website)

King celebrants did not disappear, though. A day of service was held Saturday, kicking off a spring-long series of events to be announced. Eventually a service was added to the schedule, Sunday afternoon at historic Grace Episcopal Church. At that observance, Sarah Swayze was honored with the Dr. Percy and Lileah Harris 'Who is My Neighbor?' Award.

Sarah Swayze (Source: Empowering Youths of Iowa)

Ms. Swayze, who lives in the Wellington Heights neighborhood mere blocks from my house, founded Empowering Youths of Iowa, a nonprofit that provides mentors for high school students (King 2024).

I missed the service as I struggled with the snow. I did participate Monday in Coe's annual transcribathon for the Library of Congress, endeavoring to decipher two letters written in the 1870s by future president James Garfield.

James Garfield wrote this. Who could read it?

The annual King holiday is an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to building the "beloved community" of which he often spoke and wrote. We meet together, in the middle of winter and in the middle of the increasing madness of our body politic, and remember his vision, and why we do what we do. While Trump sweeps all before him at the precinct caucuses, we remember the anti-Trump; instead of spewing insults and spreading hate, King promoted a vision of a beloved community where people of all sorts worked across their differences because they recognized a common human destiny. When we see others speaking our language, King's language, working for the same goals, often way harder than your humble blogger does, our conviction is renewed. For the moment, we know we're not crazy, no matter how marginal we seem to the daily hurly-burly.

We sing this song every Martin Luther King Day, which might be my favorite hymn of all time (6:06):

At least it's better than "Try It in a Small Town."

We need to remember, too, that King also faced discouragement, and the same existential woe that I and possibly you are experiencing. At Christmas 1967, years after the hope of the Montgomery bus boycott and the triumphant "I Have a Dream" speech, King faced impatience and discontent within the civil rights movement, as well as great personal danger as events were soon to prove. "Peace on Earth," he began, quoting the angels' song in Luke 2:

This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without.... Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and good will toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don't have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. (M.L. King [1967] 1991: 253)

The dream of 1963 was far from reality.

In 1963, on a sweltering August afternoon, we stood in Washington, D.C., and talked to the nation about many things. Toward the end of that afternoon, I tried to talk to the nation about a dream that I had had, and I must confess to you today that not long after talking about that dream I started seeing it turn into a nightmare. I remember the first time I saw that dream turn into a nightmare, just a few weeks after I had talked about it. It was when four beautiful, unoffending, innocent Negro girls were murdered in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. I watched that dream turn into a nightmare as I moved through the ghettos of the nation.... (257)

And yet, hope is our only choice.

Yes, I am personally the victim of deferred dreams, of blasted hopes, but in spite of that I close today by saying I still have a dream, because, you know, you can't give up in life. If you lose hope, somehow you lose that vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of all. And so today I still have a dream.

I have a dream that one day men will rise up and come to see that they are made to live together as brothers... I still have a dream today that in all of our state houses and city halls men will be elected to go there who will do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with their God.... I still have a dream that with this faith we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when there will be peace on earth and good will toward men. It will be a glorious day, the morning stars will sing together, and the sons of God will shout for joy. (257-258)

The whole sermon (29:30):

 

Today, 16 January 2024, is not that glorious day, and the shouts of joy I hear are those of the caucus victors, full of vengeance and grievance and misplaced anger. And yet, Dr. King reminds us to keep working for justice and real community, because, really, what choice do we have?

 

Even though I drove out of my garage this morning, across the newly-plowed alley, directly into a snowbank.

SOURCES: 

Grace King, "Nonprofit Founder to Get 'Neighbor' Award," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 14 January 2014, 2A

Martin Luther King Jr., "A Christmas Sermon on Peace," in James M. Washington (ed), A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. (HarperCollins, 1991), 253-258.

SOME GOOD NEWS: 

Nicholas Kristof, "This Was a Terrible Year, and Maybe Also the Best One for Humanity," New York Times, 30 December 2023

Catherine Rampell, "Congress is About to Do Something Amazing: Agree to Invest in Kids," Washington Post, 15 January 2024

"A Transformed Memphis: Inspiration from the Civic Commons in 2023," Reimagining the Civic Commons, 16 January 2024

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

Onlining about Redlining: MLK Day 2022

1930s HOLC map of Cedar Rapids at National Archives (Author's photo)

If it already had felt strange to have the celebration of inclusive community that is the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration online, technology added insult to injury when the Facebook Live feed of the evening event at Coe College was inaudible. Pastors Stephanie and Keeyon Carter, who started Wellington Heights Community Church, gave the keynote address. Linn-Mar High School senior Kayla Purchase and student assistance counselor Janessa Carr (co-founder of the Marion Alliance for Racial Equity) received the Dr. Percy and Lileah Harris "Who is My Neighbor?" Award (King 2022). I trust "Lift Every Voice and Sing," one of the greatest songs ever written, was sung. (See video of the event, below.)

Gathering at St. Paul's Methodist in January 2020 ("the before-times")

In the afternoon, participants in a powerhouse panel on housing issues argued that while redlining in its purest form has been outlawed for more than 50 years, its impacts continue to be felt today, in spite of a broad array of ameliorative programs in which the City of Cedar Rapids is participating. Years of exclusion from housing opportunity, along with violent suppression, put blacks and other Americans of color at a substantial disadvantage in terms of economic opportunity (with spillover effects into all aspects of daily life). That's the essence of systemic racism.

 

L to R: Betty Johnson, Clint Twedt-Ball, Tonyamarie Adams, Jeff Pomeranz

 

Clint Twedt-Ball, Executive Director of Matthew 25 in Cedar Rapids, cited the book Know Your Price by Andre Perry (Brookings Institution, 2020) which found houses in white neighborhoods fetched prices 48 percent higher than comparable houses in predominantly black neighborhoods. Over the decades that added to a huge amount of lost money, which, Twedt-Ball noted, could have been spent on solving social problems. It also means that blacks have a more difficult time securing home loans even today.

Tonyamarie Adams, Cedar Rapids realtor and Neighborhood Building Assistant at Matthew 25, noted that today more energy goes into new construction than on poor neighborhoods where people need help like the Taylor Area and Time-Check, and that she has yet to find a lender of African descent. Where, she asked, are lenders who are willing to work with people who are struggling? 

Moderator Anne Harris Carter read from a 1930 description of Cedar Rapids neighborhoods

Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomeranz noted that, as problems persist and he and others have a lot to learn about them, this year, for the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is an official city holiday. (Really? The first?) The city participates in a number of programs designed to help disadvantaged people, including Paving for Progress, which invests in infrastructure maintenance according to perceived need not the value of the neighborhood; Neighborhood Finance Corporation, which provides home loans and down-payment assistance; Community Development Block Grants; Section 8 Housing Assistance, which provides rental assistance in hopes that stability can lead to homeownership in the long run; low-income housing credits for developers; PATCH, which helps people fix up their homes; Urban Dreams, which creates opportunities for younger people by connecting them to jobs; and a two-year plan to use American Recovery Act money to fund scholarships to Kirkwood Community College. (A complete list of housing services available in Cedar Rapids is here.)

And yet, problems persist. Assessment of some of the programs show they're not widely known, and don't reach many of the people they're intended to reach, Pomeranz said. Moreover, if the programs were more widely used, they would quickly run out of funding. It seems that, if we take the problems of housing opportunity and overall economic opportunity seriously, we're going to have to do more than incremental fixes. Maybe we need an approach like that cited in the chat by Karla Twedt-Ball of the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation: Evanston, Illinois, has started a reparations fund to compensate for housing discrimination between 1919 and 1969.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. is a day to start thinking outside the policy box. Washington Post columnist Robin Givhan notes that "while [King] was more liberal than radical, it's hard to imagine that he would be so revered if he were a 30-something activist today--a Black man marching in the streets and advocating for fair wages, voting rights, racial justice and a more equitable form of capitalism" (Givhan 2022). King's true legacy, Givhan argues, is not the glossy picture of "a warmhearted preacher who just wanted everyone to get along," but those people who today continue to "advocate for change [and] do the hard work of organizing." 

The ongoing impacts of redlining is only one fundamental problem of housing policy. It is widely acknowledged that, as Mayor Tiffany O'Donnell noted in the chat, "Home ownership = generational wealth." This is a true--at least for most people whose families were able to buy homes in the mid-20th century with help from the Federal Housing Administration, 30-year mortgages, and suburban development--but problematic statement. Besides the question of how equitable is an arrangement where certain children inherit wealth, it is not clear how long this arrangement is financially sustainable for anyone. As homes appreciate in value, they become less affordable for homebuyers and sometimes depending on property tax rates even for current owners (Phillips 2020: 61). On the other hand, when wealth is tied up in home values, even kind-hearted people have strong incentives to resist racial and economic integration, and increased density, which threaten the value of their houses (Cortright 2017).

"Dr. King was bold," writes E.J. Dionne (2022). The racial wealth gap is the result of decades of systemic inequity; it demands that we be bold, too.

SEE ALSO: 

"Housing Policy," 1 July 2021

"MLK Against the Mob," 21 January 2021

Linda Evans, "MLK Jr. Day," Vegan Linda, 18 January 2022

Shane Phillips, The Affordable City: Strategies for Putting Housing Within Reach (And Keeping It There) (Island, 2020)

Jeana Quinlan, "Commemorating Martin Luther King Day," The Cosmos (Coe College), 21 January 2022, 1-2

Allen Vandermeulen Jr., "A Prayer of Invocation Based on King's 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail," The Here and Hereafter, 17 January 2022 

 

MLK Against the Mob

 

Officer Eugene Goodman.
Still from Igor Bobic (Huffington Post) video of Capitol Hill riot
(swiped from Yahoo News)

There is nothing blacker than uncertainty--JULIAN RANDALL

This year's observance of Martin Luther King Day took place less than two weeks after a white supremacist riot at the U.S. Capitol, less than a year after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis set off weeks of protests, and during a coronavirus pandemic that has killed over 400,000 Americans, disproportionately people of color. The commemorations mixed anger, sadness, and hope.

The mix of feelings came across strongly during "Not Just Another Day Off," a video medley of poetry and oratory produced by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. and available through their website until Thursday. Julian Randall, Camonghne Felix, and Joe Ross read original poetry, while actors read excerpts from speeches by Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Audre Lorde, and, of course, Martin Luther King. Felix's poetry in particular ran the gamut of emotions, containing physical pain, anger, hunger, and renewal in one short text. From "Yes, It Is Possible":

But this time, my system nosed down, bringing me down to my knees to purge....

And it was like this for days, I couldn't stomach a morsel, my receptors stunted with the shock of an imminent shift.

...until, at once, it stopped, and I woke to find myself at the kitchen table, perfectly unbothered... as if life itself were some benign victory I'd won.... 

Poet and activist Camonghne Felix

"The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro," Baldwin stated during a 1965 debate with William F. Buckley. It was this statement that was read for this event, and which created a fascinating juxtaposition on King Day, given that King's most famous oratory is his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington in 1963. King's formulation assumed a well-made society from which blacks were unjustly excluded; it remained only to undo that exclusion, and blacks too could fully benefit from the American experience. Baldwin suggested two ways in which that American experience could only happen with exclusion and suppression of blacks: black slave labor created the wealth (including the construction of the White House, by the way) that whites enjoyed, and that un-wealthy whites still had the psychic benefit of having blacks between them and the bottom of the social hierarchy. Without the oppression of blacks, whites would lose wealth and social position.

These two takes on the American Dream speak directly to whether the current system is fixable, and why race persistently matters. King describes a world where race loses its relevance when segregation is lifted and barriers to opportunity are removed. He was not so naive to believe that the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were all it would take, and later argued for direct remedial action. But given civil rights laws, enforcement of civil rights laws, evolving social attitudes, and some degree of reparation, blacks as well as whites can partake of the American bounty. [You could find evidence in professional sports, where racial integration has been followed by spectacular incomes enjoyed by top athletes.]

Baldwin's darker vision suggests that the bounty itself is illusory, that the appearance of wealth only exists because powerful (white) people have taken more than their share. Eliminate oppression, and you eliminate the wealth as well. This is frankly terrifying to contemplate, as we work for inclusive communities with opportunities for all. Can we not have a crowded table with all manner of good things and no one excluded or exploited? But this take on Baldwin helps to explain systemic racism, widening income and wealth gaps, and ten-plus years of white anxiety bordering on paranoia.

Monday morning at 10:30 the DC Library presented Paula Wayne Shelton reading and talking about her book Child of the Civil Rights Movement (Dragonfly, 2013). Shelton is the daughter of Andrew Young, and she talked about knowing Martin Luther King when she was a child, and participating in the 1965 march at Selma. It's an upbeat, celebratory book that ends with the presidential signing of the Voting Rights Act. She was interviewed after the reading by two members of the library's teen council. She told them she wanted to show the "loving, warm and caring person" King was to children who know him only as a statue. There was some reference to current events, but mostly the questions from the children in the audience were of the "What was it like?" and "How did you write it?" varieties. Shelton is currently a 1st grade teacher at Georgetown Day School, and lives near Capitol Hill.

Lovar Davis Kidd, filmed at CSPS Hall

At 7 in the evening, St. Paul's United Methodist Church hosted the annual Cedar Rapids city observance. Since 2020 this has dispensed with a main speaker in favor of a variety show format, this year on the theme of Protest. There were memorable performances of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," "Precious Lord, Take My Hand," and "Amazing Grace," spoken word performance by Rahma and Raafa Elsheikh, and an interpretive dance to King quotes by Lovart Davis Kidd. The Percy and Lileah Harris Who is My Neighbor Awards went to Nate Klein of Mt. Mercy University, and three youth awards: Diamond Roundtree from Washington High School (now at University of Northern Iowa), and Rahma and Raafa Elsheikh from Kennedy High School and the Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success. Ann Harris Carter, daughter of Percy and Lileah Harris, preceded the presentation by reading the Good Samaritan story from the Gospel of Luke, concluding with: "(1) What is this Scripture saying to me? and (2) What am I going to do about it?"

Ann Harris Carter

What would it take to create what King later called a "person-oriented society" as opposed to a "thing-oriented society" (in his 1967 speech "Beyond Vietnam")? As frustrating and maddening as it can be, it seems despair is not an option. We must keep at it.

 

SEE ALSO: Grace King, "Martin Luther King Jr. Service in Cedar Rapids Honors 'Neighbors,'" Cedar Rapids Gazette, 19 January 2021

LAST YEAR'S POST: "Call and Response: MLK 2020," 21 January 2020

VIDEO: Mavis Staples sings "Freedom Highway" live in 2011

Call and response: MLK 2020

Annual celebration at St. Paul's United Methodist Church

Action and response were the main themes of Cedar Rapids's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations Monday at Coe College and St. Paul's United Methodist Church--appropriately, because a number of the participants I talked to expressed understandable impatience at the slow pace of change. Overtly legal discrimination is thankfully behind us, but we live in the world it created, and it leaves people of color separate from and less prosperous than their white siblings. In day-to-day life they are perceived and treated differently, which perpetuates the disadvantage. Even Dr. King--who, after all, wrote a book called Why We Can't Wait--expressed impatience and frustration. Angelina Ramirez, a Coe College student who spoke at the morning event, noted he criticized his own famous "I Have a Dream" speech in later years as naive.

The evening event eschewed the usual featured speaker in favor of more brief presentations from community groups and individuals, memorably including dancing from the Washington High School Step Team....

 ...interspersed with commentary from Keesha Burke-Henderson, recently of Morehouse College in Atlanta, and now director of diversity and international student success at Mount Mercy University. The presentations were organized to alternate calls and responses. (The format could use some polishing--a lot of the actual response came in the form of applause, with so many standing ovations it began to feel like a State of the Union address--but I hope they try it again next year.)

One compelling call came from local story teller Zette St. Charles, who spoke briefly on the theme "Will You Answer When Called."

Source: African American Museum of Iowa

St. Charles recounted all the role modeling she's gotten over the years, particularly from older family members, which she found both inspiring and intimidating. [The corresponding response came from the Amen Choir, children from local churches, whose song and dance got the audience up and going, even me.] Anne Carter, daughter of local icons Percy and Lileah Harris, cited evidence from conversations with her own children that skin color continues to define life experience. [The corresponding response was "We Shall Overcome," sung by the combined choirs of Coe College and St. Paul's, to which members of the audience gradually rose and some joined in.]


Molly Lamb, a teacher at McKinley Middle School in Cedar Rapids, was awarded this year's Percy & Lileah Harris "Who is My Neighbor" Award. Haley Cummings, a senior at Xavier High School, was the first winner of what will become an annual youth award.

The morning session at Coe featured a number of breakout sessions. Two speakers highlighted less familiar works of Dr. King's, which are not included in my prized copy of A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. (Harper & Row, 1986). Karl Cassell, managing partner at Cedar Rapids-based Top Rank, reflected on King's 1967 speech "The Three Evils of Society," referring to (1) racism, (2) extreme materialism, and (3) militarism. Cassell said not only are they still with us, but they've taken new forms, such as the militarization of local police departments. He concluded with a warning: "What we allow to happen to the least of us will eventually happen to all of us."

Keesha Burke-Henderson talked about King's 1955 speech at Holt Street Baptist Church in which he accepted the leadership of the Montgomery bus boycott, and his 1956 sermon "The Death of Evil Upon the Seashore." Both are facially less optimistic than "I Have a Dream," but contain calls to action with, as Burke-Henderson stressed, attention to methods, outcomes, and spiritual ideals that admitted no equivocation or gray areas. He concluded the latter with a challenge to act, hopefully: "Let us not despair. Let us not lose faith in man and certainly not in God." Individuals as well as societies can change, even an individual with "a prejudiced mind."

Dean of Students Marc' Bady celebrates his first MLK Day at Coe

Unlike, say Christopher Columbus, whose day we used to celebrate, the life of Martin Luther King Jr. remains pointedly relevant today. This is a source of frustration as well as inspiration. Why aren't things getting better, faster? Progress has come slowly, as we heard from a number of people Monday, and backsliding is so easy. President Trump, predictably, came up a lot; he is, of course, a symptom of something more fundamental, something having to do with fear, which is a primal emotion and one that is easy to trigger. (Cue Martha Nussbaum, The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis (Simon & Schuster, 2018).) Race, as has often been remarked, is inextricably intertwined with all of American history. That sad fact won't be eliminated without strenuous effort. Easy for me to say, of course, since as a white male I get to check in and out as seems convenient.

Blake Shaw, Iowa City musician, gets things started at Coe

Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday comes with music, very good music, rivaling Christmas as the foremost musical holiday of the year. For one thing, we get to sing James Weldon Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing," a.k.a. the Negro National Anthem, which is one of my favorite hymns. It has a superb message, and the music is singable with just enough quirks to keep it interesting. Johnson wrote--in 1921!:

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died,

Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

King's message, and Johnson's song, mixing lament and hope, remain relevant, not only because of the persistence of racial problems. The 21st century requires a thoughtful, concerted response to the economic, environmental and financial fixes we're in. That means we have to figure out democracy, real democracy, including everyone's voice. That means we have to figure out how to work across differences, how to overcome fear, how to listen, how to negotiate. King continues to point the way.

SEE ALSO:

"Music, Dancing, and Poetry Celebrate MLK Day at Cedar Rapids Church," KCRG-TV, 20 January 2020
LAST YEAR'S POST: "Color Blindness vs. Opportunity," 21 January 2019

Color blindness vs. opportunity

Martin Luther King Memorial, Washington DC

Those of us who remember, albeit vaguely, the era of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., can perhaps be forgiven for wishing the whole racial equality thing settled, so we can move on to some other crisis, like poverty or world peace. One has only one attention span, after all. However, race refuses to settle, refuses to consign racism to a bygone and unlamented era, refuses to quit the stage of American politics.

Dr. Evelyn Carter, from evelynrcarter.com

A lot of that has to do with how deeply wired race is to our ways of interpreting the world, says Dr. Evelyn Carter, a social psychologist with the diversity consulting firm Paradigm Strategy Inc. Race is part of the way we categorize people we meet, pre-consciously, so before our enlightened ideals have a chance to kick in our impressions of others are "auto-populated" with racial ideas, often of the rather unenlightened sort.

Dr. Carter spoke on Martin Luther King Jr Day in Cedar Rapids, in a morning celebration at Coe College and in the evening at St. Paul's United Methodist Church. (In between the two she ran a workshop at the public library.) Both talks were on the inadequacy of color-blindness as an ideal for navigating the world. She recognized the allure of color-blindness: people want to be seen as individuals not as stereotypes, and interracial conersations about race are inevitably stressful and exhausting. Whites don't want to say the wrong things, and blacks don't want to make themselves a target. So it's easier to avoid the subject.

Other studies show whites tend to over-focus on the progress made in race relations since the 1950s, which, while considerable, still falls far short of the equal opportunity the country promises. In 2016 median family wealth for whites was $171,000; for blacks it was $17,600 (Besette 2019). The disparate situations mean a world of difference in terms of access to health care, housing, travel, educational opportunities and internships, not to mention much greater vulnerability to any life setback. Not surprisingly, as a consequence, young African-Americans and Latinos are much more likely to live in poverty, drop out of school, and be unemployed (Besette 2019).

Dr. Carter speaking at St. Paul's UMC

Dr. Carter argued color-blindness stifles conversation about what's going on in the world, thereby inhibiting remedial action, and keeps us frm being good neighbors. At St. Paul's she addressed the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Christian gospel of Luke, arguing that Jesus's concept of neighbor does not necessarily mean someone like us with similar experiences and attitudes, but anyone in whom we can recognize common humanity. "How would you want to experience the world?" she asked. "How would you want to be treated, to be shown mercy?" Dr. King's 1963 speech in Washington, she said, did not advocate for a color-blind society--a common interpretation of the "content of their character" passage--but a "beloved community" involving a variety of gifts.

She concluded both talks by commending "frank conversations about race" as the only way to overcome the racial divide and begin to achieve some semblance of King's dream. She proclaimed herself an optimist, believing that these conversations can and will happen. She recommends:

• "Lean into the awkwardness." White people in particular should stop trying to prove their sympathy-likability ("peformance orientation") and try to learn as much as they can from the other person.
• "Remember that relationship can go a long way." The more time you spend with someone the more trust you build.
• Conversation can clarify what needs to be done (referencing Luke 10:37, Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.')

Her wisdom and optimism are important antidotes to a racial scene in America that can seem intractable to the sympathetic white, not to mention downright dangerous to the black or Latinx.

Johnson STEAM Academy choir sang some lively tributes to Dr. King

Ana M. Clymer, Cultural Equity Statewide Coordinator,
accepting the Percy and Lileah Harris "Who is My Neighbor" Award
(Fun fact: The Harrises were Dr. Carter's grandparents)

SEE ALSO:

Camille Busette, "Our Day of Reckoning," Brookings, 12 January 2019
Alison Gowans, "MLK Day Speaker, Granddaughter of Percy and Lileah Harris, Encourages Hard Conversations," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 20 January 2019
LAST YEAR'S POST: "Acting for Inclusion in a Fearful World," 16 January 2018 (also 2017 2015)

Acting for inclusion in a fearful world

Stacey Walker (Source: Linn County)

Our institutions have a responsibility to bring relief to those who need it most, argued Linn County supervisor Stacey Walker at the 28th annual community observance celebration of MLK Day in Cedar Rapids last night at St. Paul's United Methodist Church. The political and justice systems in particular were called out by Walker and other speakers throughout the day for maintaining facial neutrality between white and black, rich and poor; urging those from disadvantaged groups just to try harder (the "bootstrap gospel"); or worse, in Walker's words, "preserving the status of the privileged."

Addressing realities on the ground became a major challenge almost immediately upon passage of major civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Those laws--particularly the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Housing Act of 1968--achieved breakthroughs that had eluded the civil rights amendments to the U.S. Constitution a century earlier, mainly by including enforcement mechanisms. But it quickly became apparent that middle-class whites, having built wealth and individual capacities with decades of better access to jobs and a variety of government programs, were far better equipped than other groups to deal with the economic changes ahead. One outcome of the marketplace is the winners can use their gains to buy advantages in the next round. Here's how it worked in housing:

And that has happened, of course, over and over again, which has served to reinforce not only economic advantages, but also public images of achievement and deviance. (Recall that it was a predominantly-black police department in Prince George's County, Virginia, that was responsible for the death of Ta-Nehisi Coates's friend Prince Jones.) If the face of law-abiding citizenship and professional success is white or Asian, it's easier to exclude blacks and browns from jobs, housing, immigration, and so forth--which replicates what happened in the bad old days.

Hence the emphasis yesterday on institutional responses to systemic racism and implicit bias rather than the explicit barriers of Dr. King's era. In a panel discussion before the event at which Supervisor Walker spoke, Jasmine Almoayed of the Cedar Rapids economic development office cited the need to facilitate access to resources for new residents; Ruth White, CEO of the Academy of Scholastic and Personal Success, the need for the city to address the housing stratification that directly affects resources for schools; and Rod Dooley, a local pastor as well as executive director of equity for the Cedar Rapids schools, the need for public schools to respond to changes in family structure and racial diversity that affect differentials in achievement and gradation rates.

Karl Cassell, CEO of Perhaps Today! Inc. and formerly director of the civil rights commission, urged his audience at Coe College to become politically involved in the struggle over economic inequality. Young people burdened by debt are understandably afraid to "upset the applecart," said Cassell, but while bearing such burdens are not truly "free to live your life." From the audience, long-time civil rights activist Bernard Clayton added "You may not like politics, but politics likes y'all."

Karl Cassell (Source: Perhaps Today! Inc)

Dr. King's eloquent words were summoned on behalf of these arguments, although at the presentations I attended I didn't hear the part of the "I Have a Dream" speech that is often quoted by civil rights conservatives to oppose institutional remedies: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Is it fair to assume that the removal of explicit racial barriers leaves nothing to judge between individuals but the content of their characters? The stories told over the course of yesterday point to barriers that remain and that require society-wide efforts to overcome, to life prospects that are dramatically different from birth depending on race and economic circumstance, to the need to reshape institutional and individual perceptions shaped by centuries of injustice before we get to a place where opportunity and justice are truly inclusive.

In this context it's useful to remember advice from another talk at Coe College, by Lauren Garcia of the University of Iowa center for diversity and enrichment. She reminded would-be allies to educate themselves about issues impacting the greater community, to listen before acting, and not to make the issue about themselves. The same advice could be directed at those who hear the whole conversation about these issues as attempts to make them feel guilty. To conclude with a point by Karl Cassell: as difficult as all this is, it's made moreso by economic dislocations that make everyone, even the relatively privileged, feel insecure.

Lauren Garcia (Source: University of Iowa)
Her talk at Coe College had a lot of solid advice for would-be allies

Ellen and Allen Fisher accept the 2018 Percy and Lileah Harris Who is My Neighbor Award

Music from Johnson STEAM Academy, directed by Charrisse Martin-Cox

Book recommendations at Coe

The complete text of Walker's talk is here.

LAST YEAR'S MLK DAY POST: "Akwi Nji on Choosing Justice over Comfort," 18 January 2017
SEE ALSO: Mariah Porter, "Coe Celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.," The Cosmos (Coe College), 19 January 2018 [link coming soon]