The City of Bloomington sponsored a virtual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day at 7 p.m. Monday night. The presentation was emceed by James Sanders, chair of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration Commission, and was open to the public through Zoom.
The event featured a mix of speakers and performances focusing on topics of racial justice and unity. Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton awarded the MLK Legacy Award to Marvin Jones, vice president of the Kappa Lambda chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, a historically Black fraternity. This award is an honor acknowledging those who best carry on King’s message of love and community, Jones was recognized for supporting students of all races through various programs spearheaded by the fraternity.
Hamilton also reflected on the past year of activism around the country and in Bloomington, including peaceful protests in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others. According to Hamilton, these peaceful protests carry on the vision of King in that they respond to injustice without resorting to violence.
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“We must all work to end the politics of lies and focus on truth and progress toward eradicating the evils of poverty, racism, and violence that Dr. King decried so many decades ago,” Hamilton said. “Our community celebrates and welcomes those working to heal our broken nation, and make it and our community more just.”
Khalid el-Hakim, the founder and curator of the Black History 101 Mobile Museum, a touring museum with events across the country, delivered a lecture delving into King’s legacy and the civil rights movement. He also displayed racist memorabilia and artifacts from his museum that represented the past and present racism that permeates American culture.
Among the artifacts showcased by el-Hakim was a video from the 1930s television show “The Little Rascals” depicting a group of young white boys lynching a young black girl. el-Hakim contextualized the clip by explaining this type of imagery was accepted in children’s media during that time, which influenced young King.
el-Hakim also discussed his feelings about King’s legacy and the phenomenon of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a whole. In his view, American education skims over into Dr. King’s works and activities, limiting his accomplishments to his “I Have a Dream Speech” and “Letters from Birmingham Jail.”
“Most of us just know a very small part of work from Dr. King, but how many of us know that Dr. King wrote five books in his lifetime?” el-Hakim said. “My challenge to all of us is to go back and read King's work, and perhaps we can look at King's legacy, and how we celebrate King through a proper lens.”
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Performances at the virtual event included a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” from the IU African American Choral Ensemble and a choreographed dance routine by the Jacobs School of Music Ballet Department set to the song “Never Too Much” by Luther Vandross, an African-American R&B and soul singer popular during the 70s and 80s. The dance, choreographed by IU instructor Brianna Mitchell, was meant to convey a sense of love and community in contrast to the darkness of the pandemic, inspired by the messages of peace delivered by King.
“When I think of this music, it brings me joy and makes me think of the family and the community around me that we aren't able to be around right now,” Mitchell said. “I wanted to show the celebration of things rather than the trauma. I wanted to focus on celebration and how we got, how we overcame things and got out of it.”
