It's been many years now since America decided to honor civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr by making his birthday a national holiday.
Across the country, there are ceremonies to mark the occasion, to pay respect to King and his causes, to keep alive the dream he embodied of a better world, for blacks as well as whites.
For some reason, though, Bristol has rarely seen fit to join the crowd.
In the best years, the city government has joined with the NAACP to hold an event that allowed for a public expression of our debt to King and to hail the America he helped to forge.
But too often, and this year may be no different, the city has done nothing.
In reporter Jackie Majerus' story today, leaders of Bristol's tiny NAACP chapter say they'd like to hold an event on the holiday in the auditorium at Memorial Boulevard School, as they sometimes have in the past.
But acting President Nicole Walker-Massari said the group can’t afford it this time.
“They want us to buy insurance,” Bill Whitehead, the former branch president, told Majerus.
So for the lack of a few hundred dollars, there apparently won't be a ceremony in Bristol, other than the religious one that the Beulah AME Zion Church sponsors.
It's incomprehensible, really.
A city of 61,000 residents should have a public ceremony on important occasions such as the King Holiday, which could be co-sponsored by the NAACP and other groups. But unless someone at City Hall steps up to the plate, it's not going to happen.
If the city won't take the lead, at the very least it shouldn't be forcing the NAACP to seek out insurance for taking on a task that it ought not have to do alone.
I understand the rationale for requiring $1 million insurance policies when a private group wants to use public space for a private event, whether it's a political fundraiser or the crowning of a beauty queen.
But why should the NAACP have to fork over money to do something for the community as a whole? Why, for that matter, should the Bristol Veterans Council have to buy insurance so it can hold Bristol's Veterans Day ceremony at the school?
If the city government is going to let groups take up the burden it refuses to shoulder itself, it should have the self-respect not to make them pay to do it as well.
I know Mayor Art Ward plans to talk today with city lawyers about this whole situation. I hope they'll see the big picture.
The narrow-minded focus on the bottom line, no matter what, that this policy is based on sends a rather stunning message to the community: the city government is not a partner. It's just another obstacle to doing something nice for Bristol.
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
21 comments:
Try doing something like picking up litter in the parks - and the UNIONS come down on you for taking overtime work from the city employees!
This is about insurance costs...not union contracts. Where can people send a contribution to help defray insurance costs? How should the check be written? Has anyone sought support from local businesses? Strike a spark; make it happen.
based upon this and many other postings, it seems as though Mr. Collins is attempting to create the news on this blog versus reporting it.
It's hardly creating news to point out that most every city in America is honoring King this month while Bristol might not.
THERE IS AN OLDER GENTLEMEN THAT PICKS UP LITTER ALMOST EVERYDAY ON THE BLVD> NOT ONE UNION GUY EVERY SAID A WORD> IF PEOPLE WOULD STOP SUING FOR ANY LITTLE THING YOU WOULD NOT NEED INS> BUT TILL THEN THE CITY HAS TO BE PROTECTED.
Isn't it a written policy that all organizations need to show proof of insurance.
Doesn't the NAACP have insurance?
What would a one day rider cost them?
Athletic organizations are required to show insurance: where do we draw the line?
A one-day rider would apparently cost more than the NAACP has.
My point is that it is the city itself that should sponsor the ceremony, perhaps in conjuction with the NAACP, which would make all this talk about insurance pointless. The city is fully insured.
Just to show how seriously others take this responsibility, here's a link to a commission in the state government that is supposed to make sure the holiday is properly observed in Connecticut: http://www.ct.gov/chro/taxonomy/ct_taxonomy.asp?DLN=47424&chroNav=|47424|
"A city of 61,000 residents should have a public ceremony on important occasions such as the King Holiday, which could be co-sponsored by the NAACP and other groups" -Steve Collins
I don't agree with this. King did much for the Sub-Saharran African community in this country. I don't see his work having much effect on anyone else (except for other minorities, excluding Jews).
Should we have public events for Columbus Day, St Patrick Day, Dingus Day or anything else as well. Give me a break Collins!
I'll let former President Ronald Reagan answer that one. Here are his remarks on signing the holiday bill into law in the presence of Coretta Scott King:
"Mrs. King, members of the King family, distinguished Members of the Congress, ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, I'm very pleased to welcome you to the White House, the home that belongs to all of us, the American people.
"When I was thinking of the contributions to our country of the man that we're honoring today, a passage attributed to the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier comes to mind. "Each crisis brings its word and deed." In America, in the fifties and sixties, one of the important crises we faced was racial discrimination. The man whose words and deeds in that crisis stirred our nation to the very depths of its soul was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Martin Luther King was born in 1929 in an America where, because of the color of their skin, nearly 1 in 10 lived lives that were separate and unequal. Most black Americans were taught in segregated schools. Across the country, too many could find only poor jobs, toiling for low wages. They were refused entry into hotels and restaurants, made to use separate facilities. In a nation that proclaimed liberty and justice for all, too many black Americans were living with neither.
"In one city, a rule required all blacks to sit in the rear of public buses. But in 1955, when a brave woman named Rosa Parks was told to move to the back of the bus, she said, "No." A young minister in a local Baptist church, Martin Luther King, then organized a boycott of the bus company—a boycott that stunned the country. Within 6 months the courts had ruled the segregation of public transportation unconstitutional.
"Dr. King had awakened something strong and true, a sense that true justice must be colorblind, and that among white and black Americans, as he put it, "Their destiny is tied up with our destiny, and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom; we cannot walk alone."
"In the years after the bus boycott, Dr. King made equality of rights his life's work. Across the country, he organized boycotts, rallies, and marches. Often he was beaten, imprisoned, but he never stopped teaching nonviolence. "Work with the faith", he told his followers, "that unearned suffering is redemptive." In 1964 Dr. King became the youngest man in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
"Dr. King's work brought him to this city often. And in one sweltering August day in 1963, he addressed a quarter of a million people at the Lincoln Memorial. If American history grows from two centuries to twenty, his words that day will never be forgotten. "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."
"In 1968 Martin Luther King was gunned down by a brutal assassin, his life cut short at the age of 39. But those 39 short years had changed America forever. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had guaranteed all Americans equal use of public accommodations, equal access to programs financed by Federal funds, and the right to compete for employment on the sole basis of individual merit. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had made certain that from then on black Americans would get to vote. But most important, there was not just a change of law; there was a change of heart. The conscience of America had been touched. Across the land, people had begun to treat each other not as blacks and whites, but as fellow Americans.
"And since Dr. King's death, his father, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr., and his wife, Coretta King, have eloquently and forcefully carried on his work. Also his family have joined in that cause.
"Now our nation has decided to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by setting aside a day each year to remember him and the just cause he stood for. We've made historic strides since Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus. As a democratic people, we can take pride in the knowledge that we Americans recognized a grave injustice and took action to correct it. And we should remember that in far too many countries, people like Dr. King never have the opportunity to speak out at all.
"But traces of bigotry still mar America. So, each year on Martin Luther King Day, let us not only recall Dr. King, but rededicate ourselves to the Commandments he believed in and sought to live every day: Thou shall love thy God with all thy heart, and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. And I just have to believe that all of us—if all of us, young and old, Republicans and Democrats, do all we can to live up to those Commandments, then we will see the day when Dr. King's dream comes true, and in his words, "All of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, '... land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.'"
"Thank you, God bless you, and I will sign it."
City allows dogs to swim in our park pools, run wild up at the Robert's and they are not required to have insurance - why?
There is something to be said for taking responsibility for ones actions.
It would set a good example by the NAACP if they would work this out themselves.
I never said King was not a great man Steve. I'm not criticizing King. I think King was a great man. But there were many great men who did great things for this country and our civilization. You are enamored with him because he was black and fought for the black cause (justifiably).
In regards to Reagan's speech, I totally agree with him. You I do not. To paraphrase your hero Lloyd Benson, I supported Reagan Steve. You are no Ronald Reagan.
Shame on anyone for dismissing Martin Luther King as unworthy of City recognition. If the CIty is strictly enforcing this insurance issue by singling out NAACP because it accused the Police Department of racism, then shame on the City too for holding a grudge. NAACP may of went overboard on that, but that's no reason to prevent honoring King.
I don't believe that the city is singling out the NAACP: It is city policy for all city property.
Maybe Ward can get the legion to donate their hall.
The MLK Day observance should be a city sponsored event. It should not fall on the NAACP to do it -- or pay for it.
Thank God, Steve, that you are no Ronald Ray-gun.
King did and said some great things. I just don't think that taxpayers should be paying for and event like this.
Why not have an event to honor George Washington and Abe Lincoln as well? How about Christopher Columbus? How about all the authors of the Constitution?
I really don't think Martin Luthor King Jr. would appreciate most of the recent actions of the local NAACP anyway. I'm sure he'd feel shame for them actually.
I had a dream! Small time local yokel politicans stopped pandering to special interests and victim groups. But it's just a dream.
I have a dream, too. That Bristol will stop being so.... Bristol. But that's just a dream, too.
Here's an idea. I like Bristol being Bristol. I'll stay, you go.
Didn't see anything about Matin Luther King in the Press on the anniversary of his birth!!!
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