Bryer Haywood, Contributing Writer
Heciel Nieves Bonilla, News Editor
Maeve Bauer, Spectrum Editor
Richmond and VCU organizations have held events during MLK week for the past 12 years to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
This year, things were a little different, as the focus shifted toward the urgency of nationwide disarray and using Dr. King’s philosophy as a guide through the political landscape.
On the evening of Jan. 19, organizers from RVA Indivisible, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the brothers and alumni of Alpha Phi Alpha came together for a candlelight vigil recognizing individuals detained, arrested and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Indivisible organizer Lauren has been involved in MLK Day demonstrations in the past, but said this one was different.
“We are moving to a memorial model,” Lauren said. “Instead of just focusing on protecting democracy, we are now also focusing on protecting human life. So we’re adding an element of sacredness that did not used to be part of this. It used to be protest more than vigil.”
Lauren said the event was still a commemoration of King as it was “following in the footsteps” of his work, and compared the mass community actions he took part in for civil rights in Selma to what has taken place in Minneapolis. She said many volunteers had planned to help on MLK Day and all saw fit to reformulate the event.
“All of us came to the conclusion that this is its own form of community service, standing up and demanding our rights on behalf of the most vulnerable and who cannot come out because they don’t feel safe,” Lauren said. “Anyone who was not born in the U.S., whether they are a citizen now or not, does not feel safe.”
Rev. Dr. LK Harris spoke at the vigil, bringing light to the religious messages that King held.
“The first thing people tend to forget to put the reverend in front, so being Reverend Dr. King, I’ll look at it from that aspect because that’s my calling as well so I wanna make sure people understand his first calling about God and peace,” Harris said.
Harris is currently working on a movie that follows the Richmond 34, a group of Virginia Union University students who held a sit-in at Thalhimer department store in 1960. Similar to King, those students believed in non-violence. With his film, Harris hopes to show that people are still fighting for what has been fought for these past 60 years.
“They marched back in 1960 and we’re still marching today and it is just beyond reasoning why we are still fighting the same battle we fought 60 years ago,” Harris said. “We are still dealing with the same issues, and now instead of us continuing to go forward, it’s like we’re going backwards because of this administration.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People organized a legislative day on Jan. 20, and members of the organization also went to the vigil the previous day. In attendance was Jalen Vince, president of the NAACP’s Youth & College division and a transfer from VCU to Virginia Union University.
Vince said part of MLK’s legacy was community building across racial boundaries, and pointed to the inspiration he took from Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi as a needed example of an “intercontinental” connection between struggles.
“We have waves and time periods where we’ll go back into our silos,” Vince said. “I think that the time period of separation has passed us, and now we’re in a time period where we have to be formed together as one. And we have to sustain that. I think they did a really good job of that during the era of MLK.”
Vince said the organization opposes actions by the government leading to diminished access to education for immigrants or to fear in immigrant communities. His division of the NAACP intends to establish deeper collaboration with student associations representing diverse people groups in response to ICE crackdowns.
“They done kill Hispanic folk with these ICE enforcements, Black people have died, and then it killed a white woman, too — they don’t care,” Vince said. When they killed her, that’s when it was like, oh, wow … To make a call, that’s the education of why the connection matters. We are all at risk.”
The organization also calls for students to get involved in politics and to speak to their concerns at Boards of Visitors and Boards of Trustees meetings, at legislative committees and at city council.
Legislative priorities for the Virginia NAACP chapter include passing reforms to university Boards of Visitors allowing student representation, ensuring there are voting precincts at all college campuses in the state and protecting the state’s historically black colleges and universities.
Other MLK Week events listed by VCU included charity drives, a commemoration at the Black History Museum, a family night at the Oak Avenue community center in Henrico, a dinner at the VCU Health Hub center and several education events.
The keynote event during MLK Week was a panel discussion touching on strategies for community organizing, led by three founders of groups meant to teach young people leadership or life skills.
Elijah Lee, a high school student and founder of Hear Our Voices, said it is important to teach young people how to organize for change.
“I have a significant fear that if we don’t organize ourselves quickly, we are going to miss our opportunity,” Lee said. “What does our tomorrow look like if we’re unwilling to organize?”