Walnut Creek Honors Martin Luther King Jr.'s Legacy

Some people worked on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday. Some took advantage of the day off to go to the movies or to clean up the last of their holiday decorations. In Georgia, two school districts decided students should attend school to make up for snow days, angering the NAACP.

A crowd of more than 200 people decided to take time out of this holiday to attend an event in Walnut Creek celebrating the life and legacy of the Nobel Prize-winning civil rights activist. The standing-room-only celebration at Civic Park's community center was part revival meeting and part peace rally, with speakers proclaiming the need for nonviolent solutions to local, national and international problems.

"Violence is a failure of the imagination," said Erika Christie, co-director for the Metta Center for Nonviolence, a Berkeley-based think tank that focuses on peace. She questioned the idea that violence is inevitable in society. "There is an increasing body of evidence that nonviolence is not only possible, it's normal. War and violence are not human nature. It's what happens when human nature breaks down."

Speakers at the event mentioned the Jan. 8 shootings in Arizona that killed six and injured 13, including a U.S. congresswoman.

Mary Alice O'Conner, director of the Walnut Creek-based , one of the event's co-sponsors, said this 19th annual MLK celebration in Walnut Creek did not receive a larger-than-usual turnout because of the Arizona shooting. She said it typically attracts a large crowd, mostly residents of Walnut Creek and central Contra Costa County — seniors, younger adults, parents and their kids — who are active in progressive issues.

If King would have anything to say to us in the wake of the Arizona tragedy, O'Conner said she imagines it would be to remind us that "our hopes and dreams bind us together." 

Other event sponsors were the City of Walnut Creek, the Social Justice Alliance, the Jewish Community Relations Council and the . Speakers represented multiple faiths. Amer Araim, the iman of the Dar-ul-Islam Mosque in Concord, provided the invocation and Rabbi Raphael Asher of in Walnut Creek closed with the benediction. 

In between, the bluegrass band the Shell Ridge Ramblers led the audience in songs long associated with the peace movement, including "We Shall Overcome." Speakers shared how King's teachings had guided them in their lives.

Lonnie Bristow, an East Bay internist, was the first black chairman of the board of the American Medical Association. He also attended Morehouse College in Atlanta in the late 1940s, where he got to know an upperclassman named Martin Luther King, Jr., the son of a conservative Baptist minister. Bristow described the qualities that made King a natural leader: "He was a BMOC," he said, and a man of independent intellect. Bristow said that Morehouse's president and faculty instilled strong lessons of character in all of their students.

"The core mission of Morehouse College was that of creating men with a capital 'M,' " he said. The Morehouse way teaches that manhood required three things, according to Bristow: that a man set personal high standards for himself regardless of what others expect of him; that a man accept responsibility for his actions; and that a man always integrate gentleness into whatever strengths he has. 

Rev. Ron Swisher, the pastor of St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Orinda, asked whether the dream that King spoke of so eloquently in his 17-minute "I Have a Dream" speech is still relevant. King's famous speech, a call for racial equality, was delivered during the March on Washington, Aug. 28, 1963.

According to King, Swisher said, America had delivered a bad check to African-Americans and other racial minorities. It suggested that America had insufficient funds, but how, King had asked, could there be insufficient funds in a nation so filled with opportunity? 

Swisher related ways that America is still doling out bad checks, from the state of California being $28 billion in the hole to Oakland having insufficient funds to adequately staff its police force to letting millions of Americans lose jobs and their homes during recent economic hard times.

"My point is the dream is still relevant," Swisher said. "Dr. King's vision is still with us today."

Walnut Creek Mayor Cindy Silva offered an example of how King's legacy resonates in many different ways. While King stood for peace and the nonviolent struggle to change society, he also exemplified the spirit of volunteerism and service to other people, she said. 

"This day also celebrates his legacy of service, and of how we can work together on issues that we're facing," she said.