Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun

The 21st ANNUAL Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. HOLIDAY in Hawai’I

The Content of his character

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition-Hawaii www.mlk-hawaii.com 1988-2009 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition – Hawai’i 2009

Officers: Patricia Anthony ...... President Scott Foster ...... Vice President Juliet Begley ...... Secretary William Rushing ...... Treasure

Co-Sponsor: City & County of Honolulu

Event Chairs: Candlelight Bell Ringing Ceremony: Marsha Joyner & Rev. Charlene Zuill Parade Chairs: William Rushing & Pat Anthony Unity Rally: Jewell McDonald Vendors: Juliet Begley Logistics: Lee Gordon & Kappa Alpha Psi Webmaster: Scott Foster

Top Row: Bill Rushing, Scott Foster, Juliet Begley Seated: MarshaRose Joyner, Jewel McDonald, Pat Anthony

Table of Contents

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition – Hawai’i 2009 ...... 2 Calendar of Events...... 4 Unity Rally...... 5 Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun...... 6 Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity...... Error! Bookmark not defined. “This Little Light of Mine, I’m gonna let it shine”...... 10 Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68) ...... 12 The Dreamer ...... 14 “. . .there is always a drummer boy”...... 16 Odetta, Voice of Civil Rights Movement ...... 16 By Mahmoud El-Kati...... 19 Eartha Kitt...... 20 Congressman Steve Cohen...... 22 The Seedling ...... 23

Calendar of Events 2009 Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Events

Thursday, January 15, 2009 - The 'Alternative' African Diaspora: Interdisciplinary Roundtables on Emergent, Oppositional and New Discourses in the Field Location: Hibiscus Ballroom, Ala Moana Hotel Registration is required: $55 (includes dinner, program, and entertainment). Keynote Address: Why Diaspora? Rethinking African Peoples and Power in the Twenty-First Century Kim D. Butler, Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Friday, January 16, 2009 - Conference Roundtables Location: Imin Conference Center, East-West Center, adjacent to Manoa Campus, University of Hawai’i Free and open to the public. Option of breakfast and lunch with speakers available for $35 (with registration)

Friday, January 16, 2009 - Noon - Royal Hawaii Band Concert Dedicated to Queen Liliuokalani & Dr. Martin Luther King on the lawn at the Iolani Palace

Saturday, January 17, 2009 - 5:30 pm - The Hyatt Regency in Waikiki The Honolulu Hawaii NAACP will host its annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Awards Gala, “100 years of History, Heritage, and Hope.”

Sunday, January 18th – 5:30pm MLK Candle -Lighting Ceremony Nagasaki Peace Bell Honolulu Hale Civic Center Grounds, Behind the Kalani Moku Bldg., Beretania & Lauhala Streets

Monday, January 19th – 9:00am Martin Luther King Day Parade Magic Island – Ala Moana Beach Park, Thru Waikiki ending at the Unity Rally at Kapi'olani Park Bandstand

Monday, January 19th – 7:00pm Annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Peace Makers Award Church of the Crossroads, 1212 University Avenue, Honolulu 96822

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 – 6:30 am PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL BREAKFAST $20.00 per person All Inclusive Full Breakfast Buffet, gratuity, tax & parking Join us as we watch the Swearing-In Ceremonies The Plaza Club * 900 Fort Street, Suite 2100 Honolulu, HI 96816 * 521-8905

PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL PARTY 6:00 pm Evening Attire - $30.00 per person All Inclusive pupus, one glass of champagne, wine or non-alcoholic drinks, gratuity, tax & parking

Unity Rally January 19, 2008 11:00 a. m - 4:00 p.m. Kapiolani Park Bandstand

Welcome Mayor Mufi Hannemann Pat Anthony President Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition – Hawai’i Morning Entertainment- DJ- Steve Kelly, M.C. Rubina Collier

Lords Prayer- Gwen Johnson First United Methodist Youth Choir The Faith & Praise Ensemble First Tongan United Methodist Choir The Jesse Robinson Gospel Singers The Neighborhood Show Kids & Lil Stars of the sea Earl Stuckey - Vocalist Hickam Praise Team (Alana Simpsom) Trinity Missionary Church Expression of Praise JROTC Hopi Indians Ensemble – Fr. Arizona Chris Washington- Speech

Afternoon Entertainment D.J. Steve Kelly, M.C. Theresa Higgins

Association Capoeira Besouro-Brazilian Keahi Conjugation – Vocalist Chris Vandercooke & The Band Kimberlei Bradford – Blues & Jazz Vocalist China’s Special Edition Group G-Boyz – R&B Variety Chemistry Lab Presents Hip Hop & Rap Trade Winds- Motown Old School The Reggae Band- Grassroots & Jawaiian Sewa Sare – African Dance Group Mime Dancer

Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun Grand-Marshall for the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition- Hawaii Holiday Parade Ambassador to New Zealand and the Independent State of Samoa The first black female Senator in US history The second African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate in the 20th century

Whenever someone argues that one person is unable to make a difference, former U.S. Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun will not accept it. In one of her lectures, “Colored Water and The Power of One,” Moseley Braun chronicled changes in the United States social order that have occurred during the last generation, focusing on the role of the individual to affect such change. She reflected on one instance when she was about nine years old, and her mother wouldn’t allow her and her younger brother to drink from a segregated “colored” water fountain. She obeyed, but her brother shouted in a tantrum, “I want some colored water!” He believed that multicolored water would come through the spout.

Moseley Braun said that while we’re now able to laugh at the innocent thoughts of her young brother, this is one example of how far the country has come within her lifetime. “Racial segregation seems ridiculous and radical,” she said. “But not long ago this painful reality defined the life of millions of people, black and white.”

Change, she said, came about with the actions and support of everyday people. “What you say or don’t say and who you say it to… all of these contribute to the atmosphere so that other choices can be made.”

Politician, Senator, lawyer, educator. Born Carol Elizabeth Moseley on August 16, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois. A leading African American political figure, Moseley Braun’s career has been marked by great successes and missteps. She graduated from University of Illinois in 1969 with a degree in political science and then went on to the university’s law school. Moseley Braun earned her law degree in 1972 and began working as assistant United States attorney in Chicago the next year.

Moseley Braun held her first political post as a Democratic representative to Illinois House of Representatives, beginning in 1978. As a representative, she was known as an advocate for social change, working for reforms in education, government, and healthcare. In 1988, she took another challenge. She was elected recorder of deeds for Cook County, Illinois and oversaw hundreds of employees and the public agency’s multimillion budget.

In 1992, Moseley Braun made the leap to the national political arena. She ran for the U.S. Senate, looking to unseat incumbent Democratic senator Alan Dixon in the Democratic primary. Up against a seasoned politician who had spent decades in office, Moseley Braun appeared to be the underdog. But many responded to Moseley Braun as a chance for political change. She won the primary, but faced another tough opponent in Republican Richard Williamson. Williamson tried to capitalize on Moseley Braun’s mishandling of a tax situation. Although the scandal marred her campaign, she won the election. Moseley Braun became the first African American woman to be elected to the Senate.

As a senator, Moseley Braun tackled many issues, including women’s rights and civil rights. She served on several committees, including the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Moseley Braun continued to support educational reforms and called for more restrictive gun control laws. Her time in office, however, was affected by claims that she misused funds from her 1992 campaign, spending the money on personal expenses. While no charges were ever filed, this allegation clung to Moseley Braun as she sought re-election in 1998.

Her re-election campaign was also hindered by her Republican opponent Peter Fitzgerald. A self-financed candidate, Fitzgerald didn’t have restrictions on how much he could spend during his campaign. He won the election by a close margin. After leaving office, Moseley Braun was appointed U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa by President Bill Clinton in 1999. She left the post at the end of the Clinton administration. A career-long advocate for education, Moseley Braun then taught at Morris Brown College.

In 2003, she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination. Moseley Braun opposed the war in Iraq and spoke out about the country’s economic situation, but she dropped out of the race in early 2004 after failing to garner enough support. She asked her supporters to vote for Howard Dean. Since then, Moseley Braun has been working as a business consultant and started an organic foods company called Good Foods Organics. She has one child—a son named Michael from her marriage to Michael Braun, which ended in divorce.

Moseley Braun’s formative years

While still in high school Carol Moseley staged a one-person sit-in at a restaurant that refused to serve her, succeeded in integrating an all-white beach and marched with Martin Luther King. After law school, Moseley Braun worked as a prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s office in Chicago. In 1978 when she won a seat in the Illinois State Legislature. Later she worked for Judson Miner’s law firm, as did Barack Obama, Michelle Obama.

Moseley Braun became Chicago’s First African-American Mayor Harold Washington’s (left) legislative floor leader and sponsored bills to reform education, to ban discrimination in housing and private clubs and to bar the State of Illinois from investing funds in Apartheid South Africa.

Barack Obama also played a role in Carol Moseley Braun’s Senate victory-perhaps the decisive role. From Chicago Magazine January 1993 comes: A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago’s electoral landscape-and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama… The most effective minority voter registration drive in memory was the result of careful handiwork by Project Vote!, the local chapter of a not-for-profit national organization. “It was the most efficient campaign I have seen in my 20 years in politics,” says Sam Burrell, alderman of the West Side’s 29th Ward and a veteran of many registration drives.

At the head of this effort was a little-known 31-year-old African- American lawyer, community organizer, and writer: Barack Obama…In 1984, after Columbia but before Harvard, Obama moved to Chicago. “I came because of Harold Washington,” he says. “I wanted to do community organizing, and I couldn’t think of a better city than one as energized and hopeful as Chicago was then.”

By 1991, when Obama, law degree in hand, returned to Chicago…black voter registration and turnout in the city were at their lowest points since record keeping began. Six months after he took the helm of Chicago’s Project Vote!, those conditions had been reversed…Within a few months, Obama, a tall, affable workaholic, had recruited staff and volunteers from black churches, community groups, and politicians.

He helped train 700 deputy registrars, out of a total of 11,000 citywide. And he began a saturation media campaign with the help of black-owned Brainstorm Communications…The group’s slogan-”It’s a Power Thing”-was ubiquitous in African- American neighborhoods. \”It was overwhelming,” says Joseph Gardner, a commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the director of the steering committee for Project Vote! “The black community in this city had not been so energized and so single-minded since Harold died.” “I think it’s fair to say we reinvigorated a slumbering constituency,” says Obama. “We got people to take notice.”

As for Project Vote! itself, its operations in Chicago have officially closed down. Barack Obama has returned to work on his book, which he plans to complete this month…”We won’t let the momentum die,” he says. “I’ll take personal responsibility for that. We plan to hold politicians’ feet to the flames in 1993, to remind them that we can produce a bloc of voters large enough that it cannot be ignored.”

Nor can Obama himself be ignored. The success of the voter-registration drive has marked him as the political star the Mayor should perhaps be watching for. “The sky’s the limit for Barack,” says Burrell.

Some of Daley’s closest advisers are similarly impressed. “In its technical demands, a voter-registration drive is not unlike a mini-political campaign,” says John Schmidt, chairman of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority and a fundraiser for Project Vote! “Barack ran this superbly. I have no doubt he could run an equally good political campaign if that’s what he decided to do next.”

Obama shrugs off the possibility of running for office. “Who knows?” he says. “But probably not immediately.” He smiles. Chicago Magazine January 1993

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition-Hawai’i ______590 Farrington Hwy #210 P.O. Box 163 Kapolei, Hi 96707 www.mlk-hawaii.org

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Every time I take a flight I am always mindful of the man people who make a successful journey possible -- the known pilots and the unknown ground crew.

So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit.

You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth.

Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live -- men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization -- because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake”.

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech December 10, 1964, Oslo, Norway:

Congratulations & Mahalo, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated Your scholarships and sacrifices are making a better world.

“This Little Light of Mine, I’m gonna let it shine”

With the backdrop of this year’s 2008 When Hamer and others went to the USA presidential election, the complete courthouse, they were jailed and beaten by Fannie Lou Hamer story is one you’ll the police. Hamer's courageous act got her enjoy experiencing in much more detail. thrown off the plantation where she was a sharecropper. She also began to receive Born in Sunflower County along the constant death threats and was even shot Mississippi Delta before any woman in at. Still, Hamer would not be discouraged. America could She became a SNCC Field Secretary and vote . . .Fannie traveled around the country speaking and Lou Hamer registering people to vote. became the inspiration to Hamer co-founded the Mississippi millions in the Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). In poverty stricken 1964, the MDFP challenged the all-white towns of Mississippi delegation to the Democratic Mississippi, the National Convention. Hamer spoke in Civil Rights front of the Credentials Committee in a struggle and the women's political televised proceeding that reached millions movement, changing the face of the of viewers. She told the committee how Democratic Party. African-Americans in many states across the country were prevented from voting Fannie Lou Hamer, known as the lady through illegal tests, taxes and who was "sick and tired of being sick and intimidation. As a result of her speech, tired," was born October 6, 1917, in two delegates of the MFDP were given Montgomery County, Mississippi. She was speaking rights at the convention and the the granddaughter of slaves. Her family other members were seated as honorable was sharecroppers - a position not that guests. different from slavery. Hamer had 19 brothers and sisters. She was the youngest Hamer was an inspirational figure to of the children. many involved in the struggle for civil rights. She died on March 14, 1977, at In 1962, when Hamer was 44 years old, the age of 59. SNCC volunteers came to town and held a voter registration meeting. She was The woman who defied the Democratic surprised to learn that African-Americans Party and the President of the United actually had a constitutional right to vote. States, stating "I did not come this far for When the SNCC members asked for two seats". . .the woman that did more to volunteers to go to the courthouse to change the modern day Democratic Party register to vote, Hamer was the first to than anyone else. . .opening it up to raise her hand. This was a dangerous Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian- decision. She later reflected, "The only Americans, women and all marginalized thing they could do to me was to kill me, peoples. Fannie Lou Hamer! and it seemed like they'd been trying to do She is the woman who most embodied that a little bit at a time ever since I could these principles, who questioned what remember." people took for granted, (denial of voting rights), who would not settle for "just two "Her unvarnished, earthy seats" at the Democratic Party National forcefulness, devoid of all pretense; her Convention, August, 1994. . and thereby unshakable conviction in the justness of changing the face of the Party forever. her cause, proved by her personal physical sufferings and the risks she continued to "She had a rock-hard integrity and take; her ennobling vision of racial commitment to the people she had come harmony and of personal redemption from and she just never left them. She for those who seek it; and her ability to was unbreakable." Bob Weil, SNCC_ articulate her ideas with a powerful religious rhetoric that had deep resonance "In 1967, Robert Jackall, then a for her audience but that had not trace of young professor at Georgetown practiced cant." University, spent part of the spring and summer working in Sunflower County. In (From Robert Jackall, Dept. of an essay written years later, he commented Sociology, Williams College, "Some on the modern trivialization of the Reflections on Charisma," unpublished.) concept of charisma, adding that he had seen real charisma just once, and it was in The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Mississippi. It was at a mass meeting that Party's challenge to the Democratic Party was going poorly, speakers droning on in in Atlantic City had wide impact. It the heat without reaching the audience. ultimately opened the party to Black Then Mrs. Hamer stood to speak. participation and encouraged a different breed of white politician to seek office. “Immediately, an electric The MFDP, of which Mrs. Hamer was a atmosphere suffused the entire church. co-chair, would not accept two seats in Men and women alike began to stand up, 1964, but it opened the way for many to call out her name and to urge her more seats. Seats, for not only African- on...She went on to speak Americans but for women, Latinos, about the moral evil of racism itself and Native-Americans, Asian-Americans and the grievous harm it was doing to the all marginalized people at the convention. souls of white people in Mississippi... It opened the doors to full political She did not do so in accusation, participation. but with a kind of redemptive At that convention, after the reconciliation, articulating a vision of confrontation with Mrs. Hamer, the media justice that embraced and President Johnson, the rules were everyone. She ended by leading the changed to make sure that each State assembly in chorus after chorus of a delegation was fully integrated. As for Dr. rousing old Negro spiritual called, King, he was one of the MEN who were appropriately, encouraging Fannie Lou Hamer to "This Little Light of Mine." When ACCEPT the two seats. He, like all of the she finished, the entire assembly was other Black notables, was not seated at deeply shaken emotionally. People that convention. crowded around her to promise they After that convention almost 8,000 Blacks would join the struggle." across America, registered to run for office as Democrats. As well as a Black Jackall goes on to analyze the specific President of the United States of America. elements of her charisma:

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68) One of the Christian Martyrs commemorated by the erection of a statue on the west front of Westminster Abbey in 1998

Many of us will have grown up with the doctrine: ‘Judge a person by their heroes’. The danger with heroes is that their impact on us can diminish with time - either undermined by skeptical even cynical re-evaluation, or simplified, stripped of the ‘hard edges’ that we find too challenging and prefer to gloss over, forget or ignore. Twentieth Century martyrs can be particularly uncomfortable, tempting us to search their boots for clay (overlooking our own) or seek other ways of diluting the challenge they present. Martin Luther King is a hero to many, and a good example of this ‘sanitisation’. A campaigner for civil rights, he has buildings and streets named after him in many parts of the world, and his picture has appeared six times on the cover of Life magazine. Yet whom do we honour? Writing twenty five years after his death Julian Bond wrote in the Seattle Times: Today we do not honour the critic of capitalism, or the pacifist who declared all wars evil, or the man of God who argued that a nation that chose guns over butter would starve its people and kill itself. We do not honour the man who linked apartheid in South Africa and Alabama; we honour an antiseptic hero. We have stripped his life of controversy, and celebrate the conventional instead. Born in Atlanta in 1929, Martin Luther King was raised in the vibrant and confident tradition of African-American Christianity, the son and grandson of Baptist preachers, and was himself ordained at the age of 19. After a broad education he was awarded a BA from Moorhouse College, followed by a Bachelor of Divinity from Crozier Theological Seminary, and went on to complete a PhD in systematic theology at Boston University. As a boy he lived daily with the humiliations of segregation, exclusion, violence and racial hatred. In Boston he matured in a more accepting and intellectual climate among people from all backgrounds. In 1953 he began a secure and loving family life with his marriage to Coretta Scott. Martin’s entry into public life, as preacher at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery in 1954, was not as a firebrand rebel but a mild-mannered man who even found some forms of religious expression in his own tradition, “shouting and stamping”, too emotionally boisterous - including in his own father’s church. With an inquiring nature, he was constantly searching for ways to link the gospel to the life he found around him and continually questioning the depths of his own faith. His social gospel approach insisted that Christians “must do more than pray and read the Bible” - society as well as individuals needed redemption. He was a politically concerned preacher rather than an activist, his speeches visionary rather than incendiary. In December 1954 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery to a white passenger and was arrested for violating city and state laws. Although not the originator, Martin became leading organizer of the yearlong boycott of city buses by the black community, which only ended when the US Supreme Court declared those segregation laws unconstitutional. His youth, professional status and training made him effective, while his skills as an orator and personal courage brought him to national attention. His home was bombed, his family insulted and threatened, local police were assigned to uncover ‘all derogatory information’ about him, and he was imprisoned for speeding (at 30mph in a 25mph zone).

Martin was a lifelong admirer of Ghandi and his spiritual approach to non-violent confrontation. This was his way too, with the ultimate goal of reconciliation, “the creation of a beloved community”, rather than just winning.

This was the pattern for the rest of his life as he worked to promote freedom. Freedom for black Americans from the injustices of discrimination, racism, political and economic exclusion “to take their rightful place in God’s world”. Freedom for white Americans from their imprisonment in corrosive attitudes and unjust structures. It was a spiritual as much as a political imperative, a gospel based on the power of redemption - through suffering (including non-violent conflict), and through love. In spite of imprisonment, official harassment, public vilification, being stabbed, and constantly criticized for being too radical - or not radical enough - he always kept to that gospel. In ‘Forgive Your Enemies’ he wrote:…Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform them. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. The other main milestones in the life of Martin Luther King are largely well known: · Becoming head of the new Southern Christian Leadership Conference · Arrested and imprisoned in Birmingham (Alabama) for defying a court order on demonstrating · His famous ‘I have a dream’ address in 1963 when 250,000 took part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom · Leading civil rights demonstrations, which helped to change attitudes and bring about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 · Promoting black people’s voting rights, which contributed to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 · In 1964 receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and visiting Pope Paul VI · His assassination in Memphis on 4 April 1968 at the age of 39, the victim of a sick and violent society While Martin remained true to his Christian beliefs and kept faith in the Ghandi approach, not all his supporters or fellow workers were agreed. After his death the civil rights movement fragmented even more and seemed to lose its way. For many, ‘Do good to those who hate you’ became ‘Might is right’. The momentum for change slowed and slackened. Poignantly, in the hotel room where King was killed, a plaque on the wall reads: Behold here comes the dreamer. Let us slay him, and we shall see what becomes of his dream. We all need our heroes, just as Martin Luther King needed Ghandi. It is not easy, as his life shows us, to avoid the trap of blunting, blurring and simplifying the ideals we see in them, because life is easier that way. If we would grow we must hold fast to the dream. Jim McLean The Dreamer to tell this story again and again and in every generation. " . . . there is a plague on Man, the opinion that he knows something." “Human beings have always been fascinated by their dreams. In the

ancient world, dreams were often Michel de Montaigne (1533- 1592) an considered to be predictors of the eminent thinker and writer of the future. The Rev. Michelle Slater wrote, Middle- Ages, was a firm believer in the In Scripture, God often speaks through importance of dialogue. Repeatedly dreams. And in our own time, scientists stating throughout the vast volumes of have spent years trying to find out why his Essays, the best way for people to we dream, and what it means for us to understand their differences is through dream. honest and open dialogue.

Some people think we dream to make Since "the winners" write history, and sense of what has happened through the that history was written in English and day, a way of organizing the information one sided. It is almost impossible to overload we have received. Others think understand the past, when filtered that dreaming has no meaning at all, that through the eyes of the colonizer. it is merely a random sampling of ideas

and images to keep our brain busy while we sleep. But one thing we do know. When scientists wake people up at the deepest part of their sleep, the part where they dream, the people cannot function. After a few days without dreams, the test subjects become irritable, depressed, aggressive, angry, and unable to cope. We literally cannot live fully without our dreams.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s most famous speech that began, “I have a dream…” He went on to describe his dream: a radically different way for The impact of Martin Luther King Jr. is blacks and whites to live together in in no way limited to African Americans, freedom and equality in the United Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, or States, and to achieve that goal through any other ethnic minority. His work non-violent resistance. His dream was towards equal rights has made a so fundamentally challenging to the profound impact on nearly everyone, powers that be that he was spied on by whether they know it or not. the government, persecuted, and eventually killed for it. Although his efforts have brought about tremendous progress, his work is in no In the hotel room where he was way complete. Therefore, in this year of assassinated, a plaque on the wall quote the election of the first African- Joseph’s brothers: “Behold here comes American President, we find it necessary the dreamer. Let us slay him, and we shall see what becomes of his dream.” of power and ability used for the good We do know what became of his of all. It is a dream of family saved when dreams. His death mobilized many death seemed inevitable. It is a dream of thousands of people who had not yet hungry people fed abundantly when the become involved. His dream grew and prevailing wisdom is that there is not expanded and began to be fulfilled. enough. It is a dream of reconciliation They could kill the dreamer, but they when brokenness is taken for granted. couldn’t kill the dream.

All because of the power of a dream -- just a dream. It seems so safe. So abstract -- So non-threatening. How could people be so afraid of a mere dream? And yet, the world we live in knows how challenging, how provoking, how threatening, a dream can be. A dream is nothing simpler, and nothing more radical, than an imagining of an “What Walks within are the Internal entirely different way of being, of being Reflections Of a Dream? together, of being in the world. A dream A Dream waiting so long to be fulfilled, is a power which neither tradition nor to escape, force can finally resist. A dream can be The Random Thoughts of A Dreamer; profoundly threatening to the powers of Waiting to be grasped and pulled into the world, the powers of domination manifestation, to become a Reality. and oppression and death. See Time maybe everything and waits for No one, It is no accident that dictatorships and But a Dream is Life's Time Machine. oppressive governments first seek out It is the Physical Evidence To Faith, and jail or even kill dreamers: poets, To The Sky is No Limits and writers, and playwrights. For these are Regardless, the people who dream that things can They Abide By No Law. Man made or be different, and they inspire others to Universal. That's why they say beware of the Dreamer, dream the dream as well, and to action who Dreams in The Day, who dreams with his to make it come true. eyes Open. The Dream is Universal, and can represent We know the power of the dream and it anything. can never be defeated, or killed, or taken Written on a plaque in the hotel room in which away. The dream will always find a way. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed are these words: It can take a long time for the dream to be fulfilled. In the good news of God’s "Behold here comes the dreamer. Let us kingdom coming into being within us, slay him, and we shall see what becomes of and among us, we are given a dream his dream." that we only partially understand. And http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction yet, God calls us again and again to let =blog.view&friendID=244169954&blogID=3 79672106 the dream be at work, even when its outcome is less than clear. It is a dream “. . .there is always a drummer boy” In the early nation of America, music Music is who we are . . . it is the voice of was in a formative stage influenced by the soul . . . . the rhythm of the spirit. . . the masses of people coming from the lyrical landscape of the mind. . . as politically restless countries of Europe. we lift our voices, and move in rhyme Coupled with the original African with the winds that blow. . .the trees sounds gave birth to a new body of that rustle and the oceans that roar . . in music. time to the beating of our hearts we release the deep hurts. . the ever While the Black cultures took on the nagging sorrows of the day . . and feel form of European music, with its the imagined joys of freedom. measured beats, the words remained in their own languages, often with two or In the Black cultures it is a major part of three levels of meanings. In the anti- life from the hour of birth to sending slavery movement and later the protest one of to heaven. For almost every part songs, the melodies were highly in the life span of individuals and polished and often vary familiar tunes, communities there is appropriate music, while the text was full of special “the drummer boy”. messages and codes.

No matter what happens, a drummer The African-American music, boy in the War must which depicts moments of keep playing his drum historical significances; The to relay orders and rally Underground Railroad, the spirits. He doesn't fight, Emancipation, the Harlem but he sees it all: from Renaissance, The Blues and the glow of the camp Jazz, the Civil Rights Movement And fire to the glare of of course, there is always the drummer battle, the drummer boy! boy watches what war creates and then breaks apart. Odetta, Voice of Civil Rights Movement In the Black culture, music, call & The singer, whose voice wove together response, story telling, poetry and dance American folk music and the civil rights are inextricably interwoven. Every movement, died December 3, 2008. public event and private moment is punctuated with music. We come from New York Times December 3, 2008 an oral tradition and music was, and is, a By TIM WEINER communal activity, a way of Odetta, the singer whose resonant communicating with each other and the voice wove together the strongest songs gods . . . a way of sharing our collective of American folk music and the civil experiences. rights movement, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. She was 77. The forced bondage in America of The cause was heart disease, her African people from different tribes, manager, Doug Yeager, said. languages, customs and regions, Odetta, who lived in Upper Manhattan, interspersed with European sounds, had been admitted to Lenox Hill fostered a new music. Hospital three weeks ago with a number which is rooted in slavery: “Oh freedom, of ailments, including kidney trouble, Mr. Oh freedom, Oh freedom over me/ And Yeager said. In her last days, he said, she before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my had been hoping to sing at the grave/ And go home to my Lord and be presidential inauguration for Barack free.” Obama. Odetta Holmes was born in Birmingham, In a career of almost 60 years, Odetta Ala., on Dec. 31, 1930, in the depths of sang at coffeehouses and at Carnegie the Depression. The music of that time Hall. She became one of the best-known and place — particularly prison songs folk-music artists of the 1950s and ’60s. and work songs recorded in the fields of Her recordings of blues and ballads on the Deep South — shaped her life. dozens of albums influenced Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Janis Joplin and many “They were liberation songs,” she said in others. the interview with The Times. She added: “You’re walking down life’s road, Odetta’s voice was an accompaniment to society’s foot is on your throat, every the black-and-white images of the which way you turn you can’t get from freedom marchers who walked the roads under that foot. And you reach a fork in of Alabama and Mississippi and the the road and you can either lie down and boulevards of Washington to end racial die or insist upon your life.” discrimination. Her father, Reuben Holmes, died when Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her she was young, and in 1937 she and her seat to a white passenger led to the mother, Flora Sanders, moved to Los boycott of segregated buses in Angeles. Three years later Odetta Montgomery, Ala., was once asked which discovered that she could sing. songs meant the most to her. “All of the songs Odetta sings,” she replied. “A teacher told my mother that I had a voice, that maybe I should study,” she recalled. “But I myself didn’t have anything to measure it by.” She found her own voice by listening to blues, jazz and folk music from the African-American and Anglo-American traditions. She earned a music degree from Los Angeles City College. Her training in classical music and musical theater was “a nice exercise, but it had nothing to do with my life,” she said. One of those songs was “I’m on My

Way,” sung during the pivotal civil-rights “The folk songs were — the anger,” she March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. emphasized. In a videotaped interview with The New In a National Public Radio interview in York Times in 2007 for its online feature 2005 she said: “School taught me how to “The Last Word,” Odetta recalled the count and taught me how to put a sentiments of another song she sentence together. But as far as the performed that day, “Oh Freedom,” human spirit goes, I learned through folk on stage there again, now with Mr. music.” Dylan, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and other folk stars In 1950 Odetta began singing in a tribute to Woody Guthrie, which was professionally in a West Coast also recorded for an album. production of the musical “Finian’s Rainbow,” but she found a stronger Odetta’s blues and spirituals led directly calling in the bohemian coffeehouses of to her work for the civil rights San Francisco. “We would finish our movement. They were two rivers running play, we’d go to the joint, and people together, she said in her interview with would sit around playing guitars and The Times. The words and music singing songs and it felt like home,” she captured “the fury and frustration that I said. had growing up.”

She moved to New York in 1953 and Her fame hit a peak in 1963, when she began singing in nightclubs like the marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther storied Blue Angel, cutting a striking King Jr. and performed for President figure with her guitar and her close- John F. Kennedy. But with King’s cropped hair, her voice plunging deep assassination in 1968, much of the wind and soaring high. Her songs blended the went out of the sails of the civil rights personal and the political, the theatrical movement, and the songs of protest and and the spiritual. Her first solo album, resistance that had been the movement’s “Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues,” soundtrack began to fade. Odetta’s fame released in 1956, resonated with an flagged for years thereafter. audience eager to hear old songs made new. In 1999 President Bill Clinton awarded her the National Endowment for the Mr. Dylan, referring to that recording, Arts’ National Medal of Arts. In 2003 she said in a 1978 interview with Playboy, received a Living Legend tribute from “The first thing that turned me on to folk the Library of Congress and a National singing was Odetta.” He said he heard Visionary Leadership award. something “vital and personal,” and added, “I learned all the songs on that Odetta married three times: to Don record.” The songs included Gordon, to Gary Shead, and, in 1977, to “Muleskinner Blues,” “Jack o’ the blues musician Iverson Minter, Diamonds” and “ ’Buked and Scorned.” known professionally as Louisiana Red. The first two marriages ended in divorce; “What distinguished her from the start,” Mr. Minter moved to Germany in 1983. Time magazine wrote in 1960, “was the There are no immediate survivors, Mr. meticulous care with which she tried to Yeager, Odetta’s manager, said. recreate the feeling of her folk songs; to understand the emotions of a convict in a Odetta was singing convict ditty, she once tried breaking up and performing rocks with a sledgehammer.” well into the 21st century — 60 That year she gave a celebrated solo concerts in the last concert at Carnegie Hall and released a two years, Mr. live album of it. Eight years later she was Yeager said — and her influence stayed She marched alongside Dr. King in the strong. Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965

In April 2007, a half-century after Mr. Singer Odetta Felious Gordon, (1930- Dylan first heard her, she returned to 2008), trained her voice for opera but Carnegie Hall to perform in a tribute to decided to sing acoustic songs in the folk Bruce Springsteen. She turned one of his tradition. The guitar playing vocalist songs, “57 Channels,” into a chanted from Birmingham, Alabama, was one of poem, and Mr. Springsteen came out the first popular African American folk from the wings to call it “the greatest singers in the 1960’s. version” of the song he had ever heard. Odetta used her influence to raise Reviewing a December 2006 awareness about civil rights issues. performance, James Reed of The Boston Globe wrote: “Odetta’s voice is still a -30- force of nature — something “It almost passes human commented upon endlessly as folks understanding exited the auditorium — and her How a people could be so ostracized phrasing and sensibility for a song have And yet, culturally influential grown more complex and shaded.” So despised and yet, artistically esteemed Mr. Reed called her “a majestic figure in So depressed and yet American music, a direct gateway to a dominant editorial bygone generations that feel so foreign Force in American life.” today.” By Mahmoud El-Kati In her 2007 interview with The Times, Odetta spoke of the long-dead singers Professor El Kati taught who first gave voice to the old blues and The Black Experience ballads and slavery songs she sang. Since World War II, and “Those people who made up the songs Sports and the African American Community. A frequent contributor to the opinion pages of both Twin Cities dailies as well as the local Black press, El-Kati has published dozens monographs and pamphlets, and he has contributed to an upcoming MacMillan Press encyclopedia, Civil Rights in the United States. www.macalester.edu/history/faculty/elk ati.html were the ones who insisted upon life and living, who reaffirmed themselves,” she said. “They didn’t just fall down into the cracks or the holes. And that was an incredible example for me.” Eartha Kitt She was over At 8 she was sent to live in Harlem with 80, and she an aunt, Marnie Kitt, who Ms. Kitt came lived a life To believe was her biological mother. that mattered. Though she was given piano and dance lessons, a pattern of abuse developed Jazz legend, there as well. Kitt would be beaten. civil rights She would run away and then she would advocate, return. By her early teenage years she outspoken was working in a factory and sleeping in anti-war subways and on the roofs of unlocked protester, and buildings. much, much more. She would later become an advocate, through Unicef, on behalf of homeless Eartha Kitt, the American singer, children. dancer, actress and self-professed "sex- As the Civil Rights Movement gained kitten" who has died aged 81, was one momentum in the of the most remarkable and distinctive 1960s, Kitt took entertainers in the history of cabaret and steps to champion the light musical stage. the cause. She demanded a Actor-director Orson Welles once called requirement be Kitt "the most exciting woman alive" written into her and, along with Lena Horne, she was contracts that she one of the first African-American sex would not symbols. perform before segregated audiences. Kitt traveled with a tuxedo, and if Kitt picked up a string of awards during needed, would ask her manager to “grab her long career, winning two Emmys a bus boy,” to integrate the audience. and being nominated for a third, as well as a Grammy. She also had two Tony This underlying anger, derived from nominations. childhood struggles first on a plantation in South Carolina and then in Harlem, She was born Eartha Mae Keith in erupted at the height of her fame at a North, S.C., on Jan. 17, 1927, a date she White House luncheon party given by did not know until about 10 years ago, Lady Bird Johnson, the president's wife, when she challenged students at in 1968. Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., to find her birth certificate, and they did. Standing on a chair, and addressing an She was the illegitimate child of a black embarrassed audience of silent guests, Cherokee sharecropper mother and a Eartha Kitt made an impassioned and white man about whom Ms. Kitt knew invective-ridden speech against little. She worked in cotton fields and President Johnson's policy in Vietnam lived with a black family who, she said, and other aspects of American life. abused her because she looked too white. “They called me yella gal,” Ms. She was promptly blacklisted by Kitt said. Johnson and investigated by the CIA, which compiled a dossier suggesting she flowers in the ghettos, but let's take care was "a sadistic nymphomaniac whose of the necessities first: give people jobs, escapades and loose morals were the and find a way to get us out of poverty. talk of Paris". Afterwards, she was When it came my turn to speak, I said effectively forced to work in exile, to the president's wife, "Vietnam is the particularly in Europe, though she main reason we are having trouble with eventually toured in over 100 countries the youth of America. It is a war and sang in a dozen languages. without explanation or reason." I said that the young ghetto boys thought it In 1960 she married William McDonald, better to have a legal stigma against a property millionaire, but divorced him them—then they would be considered in 1965. The couple did have a daughter, "undesirable" and would not be sent to Kitt, whom Eartha called "my greatest the war. In their opinion, in this society joy". The two always travelled together the good guys lost and the bad guys throughout Eartha Kitt's career, who won. later moved to Connecticut to be close to her daughter. "I do not have an act. I I didn't say this ranting and raving, but just do Eartha Kitt," she said earlier this we were in a large room, we didn't have year. microphones, and we had to speak loudly enough to be heard. That Kitt stirred controversy during a 1972 incident, reported in such a way as to tour of segregated Africa when she lived deface me in the eyes of the American in white-only hotels and rode in white- people, obviously had to have been only elevators. While there, Kitt made a given by someone from the White positive contribution by helping to build House—probably the press secretary: a 12-room school for South African "Earth Kitt makes the First Lady cry..." blacks and visiting impoverished There were no reporters present! So this neighborhoods. was a manufactured furor. Eartha Kitt Spoke Out When Others Were Afraid to Speak R/S: Didn't you suffer because of this? EK: Of course—within two hours I was Excerpt from Interview with Eartha out of work in America. Kitt From Incredibly Strange Music Vol. I RE/Search: When you were invited to a Ebony Mom wrote, “Kitt had courage White House luncheon, didn't you cause and that is the courage that was needed a scandal? when this country got pulled into the ill- advised Iraq war. If only more people EARTHA KITT: In 1968, during the who had a stage had had the courage to Vietnam War, I was invited by Lady speak out despite the fear of Bird Johnson to give my opinion about repercussion. Kitt should not just be the problems in the United States, remembered as sultry and sexy, but she specifically, "Why is there so much must also be remembered for being juvenile delinquency in the streets of gutsy, courageous patriot.” America?" The First Lady seemed to be more interested in decorating the windows of the ghettos with flowerboxes. I mean—it's fine to put Congressman Steve Cohen In August of 2008, Additionally, Congressman Cohen met Congressman Steve privately with Raphael Schütz, the Israeli Cohen (TN-09) was Ambassador to Spain, Javier Rojo, instrumental in passing President of the Spanish Senate and H.Res.194, a House Carmelo Nvono-Ncám, President of the resolution apologizing High Council of Black Communities in for the enslavement Spain. and racial segregation of African Americans. “The despicable institution of slavery impacted countries around Washington, DC – Congressman Steve the world,” said Congressman Cohen. Cohen (TN-09) today received the D. “Therefore, it is appropriate that the Emilio Castelar Work Recognition dialogue between nations today includes Award in Madrid, Spain, from the Vida efforts to heighten awareness and Foundation, a non-governmental recognize past wrongs. It is gratifying organization that promotes that my sponsorship in the U.S. House environmental protection and human of Representatives of the resolution rights. Congressman Cohen was one of apologizing for the slavery and only two Americans to receive the segregation of African-Americans in our award, and he was recognized for his country has inspired people abroad to work on passing H. Res 194, a work for racial reconciliation in their resolution calling upon the House of own nations. I am deeply thankful to Representatives to formally apologize the Spanish people for their hospitality for the enslavement and segregation of and I was glad to meet with Messrs. African-Americans. León, Schütz and Rojo to discuss H. Res. 194. Although Spanish-American Congressman Cohen served as a relations have cooled in the past few keynote speaker for the Vida years under the Bush Administration, I Foundation’s international symposium am very encouraged to see the on the abolition of slavery and the slave enthusiasm and optimism with which trade on Friday, December 5 2008. The the Spanish people and their elected speech was well received and the officials are greeting the election of audience included prominent members Barack Obama. There is no doubt in of the Spanish Government and some my mind that America’s image around of the top attorneys in Madrid. the world has already undergone a dramatic makeover in the few weeks On Wednesday, Congressman Cohen since his election.” also spoke at a forum entitled "Barack Obama, Israel and Minorities in the The elections of Barack Obama and United States" at the Garrigues Steve Cohen (who supported each other Foundation where he was introduced by in their primaries) may not mean that Bernardino León, Secretary General of we have overcome. the Presidency of the Government. Casa Sefarad-Israel, But they do show that we can. INFOMEDIA and the Garrigues Foundation sponsored the forum. And eventually we will.

And the sun and shower will help you Through the lonesome, struggling hours, The Seedling Till you raise to light and beauty By Paul Lawrence Dunbar Virtue's fair, unfading flowers.” *** *** *** *** “As a quiet little seedling Paul Laurence Lay within its darksome bed, Dunbar was the To itself it fell a-talking, first African- And this is what it said: American to "I am not so very robust, gain national But I'll do the best I can;" eminence as a And the seedling from that moment poet. Dunbar Its work of life began. was born on June 27, 1872 So it pushed a little leaflet in Dayton, Up into the light of day, Ohio; he was To examine the surroundings the son of ex-slaves and classmate to And show the rest the way. Orville Wright of aviation fame. The leaflet liked the prospect, So it called its brother, Stem; Although he lived to be only 33 years Then two other leaflets heard it, old, Dunbar was prolific, writing short And quickly followed them. stories, novels, librettos, plays, songs and essays as well as the poetry for To be sure, the haste and hurry which he became well known. He was Made the seedling sweat and pant; popular with black and white readers of But almost before it knew it his day, and scholars and school It found itself a plant. children alike celebrate his works today. He ultimately produced 12 books of The sunshine poured upon it, poetry, four books of short stories, a And the clouds they gave a shower; play and five novels. His work appeared And the little plant kept growing in Harper's Weekly, the Sunday Evening Till it found itself a flower. Post, the Denver Post, Current Literature Little folks, be like the seedling, and a number of other magazines and Always do the best you can; journals. He traveled to Colorado and Every child must share life's labor visited his half-brother in Chicago Just as well as every man. before returning to his mother in Dayton in 1904. He died there on Feb. 9, 1906. His style encompasses two distinct voices -- the Standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn-of-the-century black community in America. He was gifted in poetry -- the way that Mark Twain was in prose -- in using dialect to convey character. MAHALO TO THE Co-Sponsor: City & County of Honolulu

MAYOR’S OFFICE OFFICE OF CULTURE & THE ARTS MANAGING DIRECTOR OFFICE ROYAL HAWAIIAN BAND DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION SERVICES EMERGENCY SERVICES DEPARTMENT HONOLULU TRANSIT SERVICES, INC. “THEBUS” HONOLULU POLICE DEPARTMENT PARKS AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT REFUSE DEPARTMENT

The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition-Hawai’i www.mlk-hawaii.com January 2009