This year’s Martin Luther King Day march, despite the large police drone hovering high in the sky, felt like aloe for the chaffed and worn soul.
The size of the crowd in the Garfield gym alarmed the Seattle Fire Department, while speakers like NAACP president Gerald Hankerson, educator Jesse Hagopian, and former Black Panther Elmer Dixon, and yes, even Mayor Jenny Durkan, burned down the house.
Yet, for all the fiery words, the people and energy in that packed Garfield gym inspired me most. A few brief moments in the crowd spoke just as eloquently to me as anyone on stage.
During “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the Black National Anthem that was sung a cappella by Chandler Williams, a raised fist salute went up near the center of the room.
I looked for another, but there was just the one. Arm straight at 90 degrees, head bowed, fist proud.
The gesture reminded me of the iconic photo from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, when Gold and Bronze medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in what they described as a “Human Rights Salute” while the American national anthem played.
Both athletes were ostracized from the sports community for their gesture. Just as Colin Kaepernick is now, 50 years later, for taking a knee.
“We need to stop putting so many resources into locking up children, and more into unlocking their minds.”
Those moments of resistance cannot be silenced, and resonate through the present and into the future. Jesse Hagopian said it well. “They thought they could exclude the athlete, but they could not exclude the revolution.”
“Sing a song full of the faith the dark past has taught us. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. Facing the rising sun of our new day begun. Let us march on till victory is won.”
PHOTO GALLERY: Thousands march for justice on Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Halfway through the song, a child’s fist came into the air alongside the other.
I was moved to see father and son, standing in the middle of the auditorium, fists raised together to the sky. One fist recalling the past and the other pulling us toward a better future.
When Hagopian read the MLK Day message from Colin Kaepernick, I thought of that kid, and the future he deserves.
“We need to stop putting so many resources into locking up children, and more into unlocking their minds.”
The child’s fist lingered in the air for about 30 seconds after the song ended. I found myself feeling proud of this kid I’d never met and the father who loves him.
Another moment that won’t leave me soon: A small, polite, older Asian woman standing a few feet in front of me in the packed gym.
Everything about her said “educated, accomplished professional.” The neatly trimmed short grey hair. The classy silver earrings. The steel-rimmed glasses. The impeccable white turtleneck.
She could have been a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer. Maybe a minister or a nun.
At the first mention of Donald Trump, she vehemently spat the word that sums up how most of us feel about our 45th president.
“Asshole!”
My morning, already inspired, was made in that moment.
When the NAACP’s Gerald Hankerson recognized Seattle mayoral candidate Nikkita Oliver, the thunderous, bleacher-pounding standing ovation roared on for nearly two minutes.
But the morning’s highlight was reserved for someone who wasn’t even on stage. When the NAACP’s Gerald Hankerson recognized Seattle mayoral candidate Nikkita Oliver, the thunderous, bleacher-pounding standing ovation roared on for nearly two minutes.
Later, someone said “Nikkita for president,” and the crowd leapt to life again.
This was no emotionally manipulated Oprah moment. This was the real deal. This is what righteous anger fused with pride and hope looks like. This is a community rising.
Mayor Durkin quoted Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he says he mostly fears the White moderate, “who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
The mayor said that packed gymnasiums like this are what makes change happen, and invited the community to keep pushing her.
We can do that.
Tim Harris is the Founding Director Real Change and has been active as a poor people’s organizer for more than two decades. Prior to moving to Seattle in 1994, Harris founded street newspaper Spare Change in Boston while working as Executive Director of Boston Jobs with Peace.
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