Marin City marks MLK Day with renewed call for justice

Marin City’s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day emphasized that more progress is needed for justice to prevail.

“This year’s theme, drafting a new blueprint for justice, feels very urgent,” said Dana Emerson, College of Marin assistant superintendent and keynote speaker at the city’s 27th annual commemoration. “Across the country, people are asking why is it that the same communities keep carrying the heaviest burdens.”

“Dr. King is often remembered for his dream,” she said. “However, what we sometimes forget is that he was also a strategist. He understood that moral clarity had to be matched with structure.”

The event brought more than 300 people to the Manzanita Center Gymnasium on Monday.

“This year’s theme reminds us that justice is built every day by showing up, listening and taking care of one and other,” Juanita Edwards, general manager of the Marin City Community Services District, said as she welcomed the attendees.

The standing-room-only event celebrated King’s enduring impacts while underscoring that his hope for a more equal society remains unfulfilled.

“We need 100% inclusion, 100% equality,” the Rev. Amani Bullock of the First Missionary Baptist Church said before the festivities began. “They fought long and hard not just for us to get a piece of the pie, but to be included in the whole pie.”

Amani was at a table for the Hope Housing Community Land Trust in the gym lobby. It was one of more than a dozen tables set up by local nonprofits and social agencies.

“At this moment in history, one of the more important messages that has always been in Dr. King is not just to try to convert other people, but to stir up courage in the people that already believe, and to keep them encouraged and not let cynicism win the day,” said the Rev. Floyd Thompkins, pastor of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church.

Thompkins briefly reflected on King’s resonance today and then headed inside the podium to be master of ceremonies. After Kelly Thomas led a rousing rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” known as the Black national anthem, students delivered twirling baton dance performances and poetry readings.

More than two dozen local and county officials — legislators, county supervisors and staff, mayors and councilmembers — watched from chairs and bleachers.

“He stood before a divided nation, yet spoke with unity, as if unity were possible with words instead of weapons,” said Shaniya Valentine, a Tamalpais High School junior, reading from her poem, “A Dream Lives On.”

“A dream isn’t soft. It’s brave. It’s demanding. It causes us to stand when it’s easier to sit and to speak when it’s safer to stay quiet,” said Tayana Bland, a Tamalpais High School junior and former Black Student Union vice president.

Terrie Green, chair of the Marin City Community Services District board, and Mackenzie Harris, a college intern, briefly reported on local social and economic justice efforts.

“When you look at the fact that we have a life expectancy difference of 17 or 20 (fewer) years in Marin City, it’s unheard of in the region,” Green said. “Many folks have said, you’re asking for $750 million to deal with Marin City? Yes, we are.”

Harris noted the calls for a barrier wall next to Highway 101 to prevent air pollution, polluted highway runoff and noise; full funding for a range of flood-control and fresh water infrastructure; formal incorporation of the community; public health initiatives; and other efforts like creating a charter school.

“We’ve been working on all these projects,” Harris said.

During her address, Emerson offered a definition of what justice means today.

“In plain language, a definition of justice might sound like this,” she said. “Justice is fair access to the resources people need to thrive. Justice is shared power in the decisions that shape our lives. Justice is repair when communities have been harmed and protection from being harmed again and again.”

“Dr. King was clear that civil rights alone were not going to be enough,” she said. “He asked, what good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?”

Thompkins, reflecting before taking the stage, said King’s credo of nonviolence did not just mean “the absence of something.”

“It is the presence of people of good will who believe in love, who then use the tools of grace and political power to change things … (so) that we tap into a moral universe in a way that can only be tapped if you are nonviolent,” he said.

“There’s a lot of trouble in the world,” said Florence Williams, who has organized Marin City’s MLK celebration for the past 27 years. “Celebrating his legacy is a way to bring people together in a way that’s healing, in a way that can heal the whole land.”

“That’s why I’m still doing this after 27 years,” she said. “I believe we can be better. We can do better.”