Category Archives: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Benicia CA, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

VIDEO – The 2025 Benicia Martin Luther King Day Celebration

January 31, 2025 Roger Straw

MLK Day in Benicia 2025

(See below for timing of detailed video highlights.)

Benicia’s 2025 MLK Day Celebration was held at
Community Congregational UCC on January 20.

Highlights of the celebration with links…

An MLK Poetry Collage voiced by 8 local and nearby poets (at minute 5:11);
The gathered community in song led by the Rev. Kim Kendrick (12:40 and 46:40);
Benicia’s engaging storyteller Linda Wright, portraying Coretta Scott King (15:41);
Brandon Green reading his stunningly poignant poem “Sometimes I Dream” (43:55);
Honored speakers
- Benicia Unified School District Superintendent Damon Wright (51:42)
- Benicia Mayor Steve Young (59:06).
We also heard from Patricia Schmidt Hunter, president of the Vallejo chapter of the NAACP (1:12:27),
And enjoyed a pickup choir singing Deborah Shanks’ new arrangement of Charles Albert Tinley’s song of courage and hope, “The Storm Is Passing Over” (1:21:50).
Benicia High School seniors Jaden Bleasdale and Vaughn McDevitt gave a generational voice to Dr. King’s words of challenge (1:25:49).

And in closing: Courage in Challenging Times, “We Shall Overcome”

It was notable that the 2025 national holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fell on the same day as the U.S.’ 47th Presidential Inauguration. See introductory comments by the Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast at minute 48:31.
Many in attendance reported coming with strong emotions of fear and anxiety over the coming 4 years – and leaving with a renewed sense of community, solidarity and hope. The celebration closed with a forceful statement led by our host and event coordinator, Rev. Mary Susan Gast (1:28:47): “A simple but powerful phrase came into use in Brasil by those acting for the social good and opposing the Bolsonaro regime. En portugues: ninguém solta a mão de ninguém. ‘No one let go of anyone’s hand.’ An idea of solidarity, that we are committed to stick together, that, together, we shall overcome.”
On this note and to end our time together, we all joined hands and sang “We Shall Overcome” (1:30:16).

>> Announcement for the event, posted here on 16 Jan 2025:

BENICIA COMMUNITY
MLK DAY CELEBRATION

Monday, January 20, 2025
7 pm • 1305 West 2nd St.

Honoring Dr. King in story, recollection, song, and commitment. All are welcome.

“In these turbulent days, when fear and doubt are mounting high, give us broad visions, penetrating eyes and power of endurance.”

On Monday, January 20, 2025 Benicia’s 6th public observance of Martin Luther King Day will be held at 7 p.m. at Community Congregational UCC, 1305 West 2nd St. All who attend will be encouraged to reflect, sing together, and share their particular reasons for honoring Dr. King “in these turbulent days.” In this way we will sustain one another with the “power of endurance.”

Acclaimed storyteller Linda Youngblood Wright will portray Coretta Scott King, lifting up Dr. King’s insights into turbulent days and the ongoing struggle for justice. Local civic leaders, including Mayor Steve Young and Superintendent of Benicia Unified Schools, Dr. Damon Wright, will offer context and vision for the days ahead, along with Vallejo NAACP President Patricia Schmidt Hunter, Civil Rights attorney Brandon Greene, and others.

A pick-up choir will get together at 6 p.m. to rehearse “The Storm Is Passing Over” before singing it at the program. Email msgast45@gmail.com to request an advance copy of the music.

Flyer for the event (click to download):

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Stephen Golub, Trump

We’re Not Alone: MLK’s Dream, Not the Trump Nightmare, Should Define January 20

January 20, 2025 Roger Straw

Dr. King Saw the Civil Rights Movement as Part of a Global Struggle. That Means Even More Today

By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author, A Promised Land – America as a Developing Country

**Click for info on Benicia celebration of MLK Day, Monday 1/20/25, 7pm**

So, Inauguration Day is here. Our president is a racist, rapist, insurrectionist and narcissist, as well as a corrupt, convicted crook – to put it mildly. But to get through today’s dismay, and to take heart for the next four years, it’s far better to make January 20 about the other event it commemorates: Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This includes learning from Dr. King’s under-appreciated dream about how the fight for freedom in America relates to similar struggles abroad, in stark contrast with Trump’s nightmarish outlook.

Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue

Trump famously proclaims his stand-alone America First worldview, including disdain for democratic allies and praise for autocrats such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Like Trump, Orban won and then lost his post and then regained it. Having hobbled a once-vibrant democracy by partly crippling his country’s courts, free press and opposition, his rule represents a potential model for Trump’s second term.

Then there’s Trump’s imperialistic impulse to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal and even Canada. Whether or not he’s wholly serious, he’s certainly undercutting the case America could make against both Russia’s calamitous attacks on Ukraine and China’s potential plans to seize Taiwan. He strengthens those repressive, aggressive regimes’ international hands in the process.

Immigration similarly reflects his outlook. There are legitimate debates to be had about how to handle this issue. But Trump trashes any notion of nuance and compassion as he seeks to turn our land of immigrants into a place that resents new arrivals, ridiculously accuses them of stealing and eating Americans’ pets, and vows to end constitutionally guaranteed birthright citizenship.

He Had a Dream

Compare what Trump’s inauguration augurs with Dr. King’s role in the world and how he saw America fitting in. One lesser-known aspect of his work was its international dimension. In a 1957 sermon, after returning home from ceremonies celebrating Ghana’s independence from British colonial rule, he placed the U.S. civil rights movement within the larger context of human rights and anti-colonial campaigns across the globe. As he emphasized, “[F]reedom never comes on a silver platter. It’s never easy.”

Traveling to India in 1959, he wrote that “India’s [Mahatma] Gandhi was the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.” He further linked “the Christian doctrine of love” to the Hindu leader’s words and actions.

Dr. King supported and inspired other human rights struggles abroad. He helped mobilize international opposition to the South African government’s 1957 prosecution of Nelson Mandela and 155 other anti-apartheid activists for alleged treason. Mandela in turn echoed King’s resounding “Free at last!” cry on several occasions, including when proclaiming his party’s 1994 election triumph that capped the end of apartheid.

We’re Not Alone

With Trump’s nightmare ascendant and Dr. King’s dreams currently eclipsed, these are dark days. They will grow darker in the months to come. Here and around the world, it may seem that an autocratic tide could become a tsunami.

But Dr. King’s global role reminds us that we are not alone in our communities or country. The struggle for freedom and justice stretches beyond our shores. Such fights ebb and flow. Even today’s body blows can give way to triumphs tomorrow.

Other nations can thus inspire us to persevere despite the storms ahead. In recent years we’ve seen once-resilient autocrats defeated in Bangladesh, Brazil, Poland, South Korea and Syria. And even in Hungary, the authoritarian Orban’s party suffered setbacks in 2024’s European Parliament elections.

The tide can turn. Not necessarily. Certainly not immediately, as we lick our wounds and watch what outrages, weaknesses, self-inflicted injuries, surprises and successes emerge from Trumpworld (including, we can hope, some steps that might even do some good). But with patience and determination, we may well develop effective strategies to help our democracy survive and thrive – not least if we learn from other countries, as Martin Luther King Jr. did.

Or as Dr. King might have put it: We shall overcome.

Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land

We’re Not Alone: MLK’s Dream, Not the Trump Nightmare, by Stephen Golub.

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Benicia CA, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.