In Orleans, MLK’s Message Still Rings Loud

ORLEANS – The Rev. Liz Walker was all of 6 years old when her father took her to see Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak at her local baptist church on Arch Street in her hometown of Little Rock, Ark. King’s speech was part of a tour of southern churches to celebrate the success of the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., she recalled to attendees of Monday’s annual MLK Breakfast at the Church of the Holy Spirit. 

And while Walker admits to being too young to remember Dr. King’s exact words, she said she still remembers sitting in the church’s balcony and the energy the famed civil rights champion brought to the venue.

“It was electrifying,” said Walker, who during her lengthy tenure with WBZ news became  the first woman of color to co-anchor the news in Boston. “And his presence, not just his charisma, but the fact that the spirit of the place was alive, inspired me.”

Walker was the keynote speaker at this year’s breakfast, which was once again sponsored by the Nauset Interfaith Association’s MLK Action Team. Attendees also heard from Tara Vargas Wallace, founder of Amplify POC Cape Cod, who was honored with the action team’s Racial Justice Advocacy Award, as well as Ogoma Nwanegbo, an intern with the action team. The event also featured performances by singer Candida Rose.

The Rev. Sally Norris and the Rev. Wesley Williams, two of the action team’s co-founders, reflected on the team’s origins. After being challenged in 2015 by Callie Crossley of WGBH to do more to advocate for racial justice during the MLK Breakfast in 2015, they quickly got to work assembling the team alongside the late Rev. Ken Campbell, who died in October.

The group began meeting monthly and also began having regular conversations with the region’s local police chiefs, Williams recalled.

“The conversations were respectful but not always easy,” he said. “But we could always count on Ken to be the prophetic voice, the one who posed the incisive questions.”

Many look at the civil rights movement as a fixed period in American history. But Walker said the work of Dr. King, Rosa Parks and countless other civil rights heroes is far from over. If anything, she said today’s divisive political climate calls for citizens to continue to carry their message of love and unity forward.

“Do not grow weary doing good, the Bible says, because the time will come,” she said. “And it may not come in our lifetimes. But you are working on a continuum. You are part of the civil rights movement.”

In her speech, Nwanegbo paralleled the struggle of oppressed and marginalized people to Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The mockingbird, she said, is a “symbol of innocence” that is lost by those people and populations that are discriminated against.  

Nwanegbo, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from Nigeria, said she’s learned firsthand how the fight for racial justice and equality must continue. Growing up in what she called “predominantly white areas” and attending “predominantly white schools,” she said she has endured insults and stereotypical comments about her skin color, hair and hygiene from her peers. 

“I am a mockingbird,” she said.

Nwanegbo said racial justice and inequality continues to endure today in part because of a lack of education. She said schools have shied away from telling the truth about oppressed people and their history. That, she said, contributes to the “systemic racism” that continues to exist in America today.

“Schools insist on hiding this aspect of history to undermine the experiences oppressed people had, which influences white people to lack empathy for other races,” she said.

For others, including the Rev. Patrick Ward, rector at the Church of the Holy Spirit, it was hard to ignore the ongoing events in Minneapolis, where federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been met with opposition by protestors following the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of an ICE agent on Jan. 7. 

Specifically, Ward focused on Vice President J.D. Vance’s reference to Good’s actions that day as a “classic act of terrorism,” referencing accusations that Good had attempted to run over the ICE agent with her car in the moments before her death.

“And as I thought about Martin Luther King, I thought about the accusations made against him in his life by J. Edgar Hoover and others, of insurrection and terrorism,” he said. “Those are words that were used by the regime of Vladimir Putin in Russia. They are words that are being used by the current powers that be in Iran against largely peaceful protesters.”

 “So this word, ‘terrorism,’ I believe is obscuring the truth,” he said.

Vargas Wallace, who founded Amplify POC Cape Cod in 2020, said it was “deeply humbling” to accept this year’s Racial Justice Advocacy Award in King’s name. She described King as a “disrupter,” someone who forged through criticism and ostracism in the name of calling out racial injustice. 

“This reminder matters, because racial justice work has never been about popularity. It has always been about courage,” she said.

And while it can be easy to give in to the current cultural and political climate, Walker stressed the importance of standing up to face the challenges of the moment, just as Dr. King did in his lifetime.

“I would suggest to you that this whole country is caught up in fear right now,” she said. “And it’s not just fear of right against left. There’s a fear that underlies the mindset of those that would portray certain races or colors or cultures as threatening to us as a society. There’s a fear underneath that rage. There’s a fear of those who are fighting this. There’s certainly a fear of those who represent those cultures and colors.

“But I want you to know, as frightening as things are…you don’t have to feel powerless,” she added. “Because there’s always something love can do.”