A lot has happened in America since the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s life was snuffed out by an assassin's bullet on a motel balcony in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
The decades that followed his murder at age 39 saw fundamental change in American society, politics and economics. What would King think of 21st century America and, had he lived a full life, where would he lead us today?
"What now?"
Reporters repeatedly asked King that question after he became, at age 35, the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1964; so, too, must we ask "what now" in 21st century America, Frederick K. Brewington, keynote speaker at the 27th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast, told more than 600 people gathered in the grand ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Hauppauge Monday morning.
The "what now," Brewington said, is confronting the truths in society we can't ignore and taking a stand against "the new Jim Crow" — a criminal justice system that has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2 million people imprisoned. It is a system that charges, convicts and imprisons blacks in disproportionately high numbers," he said.
"Prisons," Brewington declared, "are the foundation of the new Jim Crow."
"In some states, black men are incarcerated on drug chareges at rates of 20 to 50 times that of white men," Brewington said. "More African American men are in prison or on probation or parole than the number enslaved in 1850 before the Civil War."
Brewington challenged his audience to "an honest discussion of how black and brown men are made the product of legal warehousing and thereafter are bar-coded and wired for failure." It is our responsibility to take a stand against injustice, he said.
He read from King's now-famous letter to eight fellow clergymen in Alabama, penned in April 1963 on scraps of paper as he sat in a Birmingham jail cell, following his arrest for participating in a nonviolent protest. (The letter was in response to a statement issued by the clergymen condemning the demonstrations.) Just as King exhorted his fellow clergy to take a stand for justice, Brewington called on his audience to "stand with me" against the injustice of the new Jim Crow.
"Take a stand. Engage in open and respectful dialogue," Brewington said. "Perform acts of conscience that defy common convention," he said, tugging at his unconventionally long hair. Brewington hasn't had a haircut in more than a year, he explained, to protest a federal magistrate's gag order in a wrongful death case he's litigating against the government.
"The words of our enemies do not hurt as much as the silence of our friends," Brewington said.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Choir of the First Baptist Church of Riverhead, under the direction of Rosa Palmore, performed musical selections that brought the sellout crowd to its feet.
The 2012 Meritorious Award recipients were: Carolyn Bentley of St. Joseph's College; community activist Louis Medina; Stony Brook University's director of diversity and affirmative action officer, Christina Vargas-Law; and Kristen Peragine, a Riverhead High School senior honored for her extensive record of community service.
Elected officials in attendance included Congressman Tim Bishop, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter, Riverhead council members James Wooten and Jodi Giglio, Riverhead Highway Superintendent George Woodson, Riverhead Town Clerk Diane Wilhelm and Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst.
The event chairman was the Rev. Charles A. Coverdale, pastor at First Baptist Church, which has hosted the event since 1986, the year King's birthday became a federal holiday. Proceeds from the event benefit the Family Community Life Center, a proposed community center and workforce housing development adjacent to the church on Northville Turnpike.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl
