MLK Day

Today is the first day of a historic week, and it is a time to reflect and think about service and making Toledo better.

MLK Nobel Peace Acceptance Speech - At MLK monument in Washington DC

I started today with the City of Toledo’s Human Relations Commission and University of Toledo’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Unity Celebration. The annual event is a celebration of Black empowerment and engagement in Toledo and usually is full of music, dance, performance, and politicians and key community leaders gathering together. There usually is a breakfast and it is followed by some kind of service project.

This year, because of Covid-19, the event was virtual. But in my opinion, the tone and the message of the event was stronger and better this year, perhaps because of the events of the last year, last summer, and last week. There was more call to action and to the protest side of Martin Luther King, rather than the unity and celebratory side of an MLK event. To make up your own mind about this, you watch it all on the University of Toledo’s Facebook Page.

The keynote was a discussion by Austin Channing Brown, a Toledo native who now lives in Detroit who wrote I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, about her book and racism. I listened to an audio version of the book before the event, so I knew a little about Ms. Channing Brown. But her discussion of her life, the challenges for Black folks, and especially her call for white allies to step up was poignant and powerful. I was not thrilled about the Christian dogma in her book, but the first half was excellent and worth a read.

Usually, I would try to find some community service event to bookend my MLK day in Toledo, but with Covid, nothing is usual. Instead, we got to walk in Pearson Metropark and enjoy the cold, grey Northeast Ohio January day with a bit of snow on the ground. I am looking forward to next year where I can do some service to make Toledo a little better on MLK day.