Blessed are the peacemakers—honoring Martin Luther King, Jr

A crowd packed the church at St. Augustine in the Woods for its 19th annual homage to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jan. 20. The theme: “Blessed are the Peacemakers: a celebration of nonviolent witnesses for peace and justice.”

Hosted by St. Augustine’s Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the two-hour tribute included video, sing along music, speakers and audience members narrating key moments in civil rights history, and an emphasis on the women who made a difference during those times.

“On this day we gather to honor, learn and be inspired by women in the civil rights movement,” Rev. Jennifer Cleveland said, recalling the fierce headwinds faced by civil rights proponents. “In the 1960s African Americans faced a political, economic, social racist Jim Crow regime imposed by violence, authoritarian rule, social degradation and education that distorted history. But these women kept their eyes on the prize.”

Ash Bystrom, one of the narrators, invited the audience to sing a song inspired by “Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times,” written by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D in 2016.

“The song speaks to the moment and fear in one’s heart,” Bystrom said. “The song is, ‘We were made for these troubled times.” Bystrom and Melisa Doss guided the audience by singing first and inviting the audience to follow.

The people stood and sang, looking at one another with genuine affection, and opening their arms:

“Don’t lose heart we were made for these times. Show your soul—it shines like gold in these dark times.”

The experience left tears in the eyes and a good lump of emotion in the throat.

Among the notable woman honored:

Ida B. Wells, a founding member of the NAACP, was born a Mississippi slave in 1862, was college educated, a school teacher and a journalist. In 1909 she spoke out against the disproportionate number of people of color who were murdered, in a speech: “During the last ten years from 1899 to 1908 inclusive, the number lynched was 959. Of this number 102 were white, while the colored victims numbered 857. No other nation, civilized or savage, burns its criminals; only under that Stars and Stripes is the human holocaust possible. Twenty-eight human beings burned at the stake, one of them a woman and two of them children, is the awful indictment against American civilization.”

Pauli Murray, was the first woman to graduate from the Howard University law school class in 1944—former Vice President Kamala Harris also graduated from this private school. Murray earned a law doctorate from Harvard in 1965, and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1977. Her legal theory was the basis for Brown v Topeka Board of Education, a case argued and won by Thurgood Marshall in 1954. The case declared segregation unconstitutional. Schooled in the nonviolent resistance movement inspired by Mohandas Gandhi, Murray was jailed for defying a segregated bus seating law in Virginia, and took part in protests to sit at traditionally white lunch counters in Washington DC. The sit-in resulted in integration of the restaurant.

Rosa Parks, a lifelong member of the NAACP, received civil disobedience training and sat in the front of a Montgomery Alabama bus in 1955. She wrote in her autobiography: “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically…No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Jo Ann Robinson, an English professor at Alabama State University, called for a meeting at Dexter Ave. Baptist Church regarding ending bus segregation. The church pastor was Martin Luther King, Jr. Robinson’s influence helped in creating the Montgomery Bus Boycott. MLK was chosen as the leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which directed a non-violent approach to boycotting bus rides.

Diane Nash—took part in 1960 student sit-ins in Nashville. She was taught, along with the late congressman John Lewis, techniques in non-violent resistance by Rev. James Lawson. Lawson was a mentor to the Nashville movement and student nonviolent coordinating committee. He also instructed MLK on the practice of nonviolent resistance—or satyagraha—as taught by Ghandi. Nash was jailed as a Freedom Rider, arrested in Mississippi, while protesting segregation on buses.

Ella Baker, known as the ‘Mother of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—SNCC—she helped organize Freedom Rides and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She imagined racial justice becoming reality and once said: “Until the killing of black men, black mother’s sons becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until that happens.”

Bernice Johnson Reagan, took part in the Albany, Georgia protests for bus and bus station integration. Believing in the power of music, Reagan formed Sweet Honey in the Rock a cappella singing group. “Somehow this music…released a kind of power not heard before and required a level of concentrated energy I did not know I had,” she once said. “Two things we knew held us together: prayer of something good to come and songs that tells from the depth of heart how we feel about our fellow sisters and brothers.” One of the songs from the era was “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.”

Fannie Lou Hamer, who worked as a sharecropper in the Mississippi Delta, registered to vote in 1962. The plantation owner she worked for threatened her with firing and loss of her home if she didn’t withdraw her registration. She refused his request, and was told to leave the plantation the same day. She joined, and became a leader of the SNCC. She was turned away when she tried to vote, first having to pass a literacy test, then for not having poll tax receipts from previous elections. She later testified about police brutality she endured when arrested on a bus trip to promote voter registration. Her televised testimony at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City NJ—at first cut short by Lyndon Johnson—later resulted in Johnson’s offering of two Black delegates—in a previously white male only delegation. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party rejected Johnson’s offer: “We didn’t come all this way for no two seats!” Hamer declared at the time. Eventually Mississippi delegates expanded to include people of color and women.

Annell Ponder, graduated from Atlanta’s Clark University and taught elementary school before joining SNCC to teach literacy—in part so that Blacks could pass the required literacy tests required of them to vote—with the Citizenship Education Program in Mississippi. Fannie Lou was one of her first graduates. While returning by bus after training in South Carolina, Ponder and Fannie Lou were stopped and harassed by local police who knew they were working to register voters. Ponder wrote down the license plate numbers of the harassing police officers and refused to say “yes sir.” Both women were arrested and savagely beaten by prisoners ordered by the officers to do so.

Casey Hayden was a White student who joined SNCC—also known as Snick—an interracial organization with about 20 percent White membership. Hayden was married to Tom Hayden at the time. In 1964 Casey Hayden co-authored a memo with another White volunteer, Mary King on the role of women in the civil rights movement. At the time males spoke publicly while women did the behind the scenes work. Hayden and King wrote: “There seem to be many parallels that can be drawn between treatment of Negroes and treatment of women in our society as a whole. But in particular, women we’ve talked to who work in the movement seem to be caught up in a common-law caste system. …It is a caste system which, at its worst, uses and exploits women.” The memo was eventually shared to women campaigning for civil rights around the country and is considered one of the founding documents of the women’s rights movement and the eventual formation of the National Organization for Women.

Marian Wright Edelman, was the first African American woman to be accepted by the Mississippi Bar Association in 1964. A graduate of Yale Law School, Edelman is the founder and president of the Children’s Defense fund, and was part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle of advisers. During the 1960s her priority was uplifting the nation’s ‘invisible poor.’ As a member of the NAACP she took part in a U.S. Senate tour of the Mississippi Delta, and its impoverished residents. Robert Kennedy was part of the delegation. She helped Martin Luther King Jr. organize the Poor People’s Campaign—a march of 3,000 people from diverse backgrounds in Washington D.C. in June 1968. While MLK was assassinated in April, the march was led by King’s long-time friend Ralph Abernathy. The protesters remained for six weeks. They wanted economic justice, supporting the idea that all people should have what they need to live. In the wake of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, Edelman has since worked to increase Medicaid coverage for poor children, secure funding for programs such as Head Start, and decreasing teenage pregnancies. “The world wasn’t so wonderful back then, with segregated rule in the South,” she once said. “But we were never hopeless and we never despaired because we had adults out there struggling with us, being there for us and buffering us.”

Near the event’s conclusion, Kenesha Lewin, who founded the Pamoja Place in Langley, spoke of the need to “…learn from the past so it doesn’t repeat itself. Let’s learn from the resilience of these women.”

Pamoja Place is a gathering place for Black, Indigenous and People of Color—BIPOC—individuals. According to its webpage, the word “…Pamoja, comes from the Swahili language, a language from East Africa, and means ‘together’ or ‘togetherness.’ Pamoja expresses our commitment to bringing the Whidbey Island BIPOC community, white allies, and cultural organizations together in collaboration, reflection, education, and celebration.”

Lewin spoke of MLK’s being intentional in his work when seeking justice for all.

“…as we are intentional in nurturing the joy and safety of youth in our BIPOC community I would ask you to be intentional in these trying times we are facing and are about to face. Be intentional with your conversation, time, resources…with your voice.”

The afternoon concluded with a video recording of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech: “I Have a Dream,” in which he addressed a crowd of more than 250,000 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963. The ‘March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom’ called for ending racism, as well as economic injustice. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.

“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,” King said. “Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”