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Breathing new life into Martin Luther King's dream

By David Freedlander, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | dfreedlander@am-ny.com

January 21, 2008

For some New Yorkers, today's holiday is actually a day to get to work.

At least that's the idea in Queens and other parts of the city, where some 10,000 volunteers are expected to participate in a Martin Luther King National Day of Service and lead food and clothing drives, clean up neighborhood streets, as well as visit senior centers, among other efforts.

"We believe that the message of Dr. King was that everyone can be great because everyone can serve," said Hanako Ikeno, a program coordinator with Service for Peace, which is organizing the effort in Queens.

Most of the efforts around the country to re-energize the federal holiday are centered on rousting slumbering youth on a day off from school.

"The thing about Martin Luther King's dream is that there is still a lot we need to do to improve things," said Esther Allen, 16, of Jamaica, who last year helped lead a civil rights fair for elementary school children and has committed time this year to volunteer efforts.

"You can do something productive instead of just bumming around the house."

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day became officially a day of service in 1994 when Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, 11 years after the holiday was created over the opposition of President Ronald Reagan and many conservatives who didn't want another federal holiday.

The idea of making the day about service has been slow to catch on, according to former Senator Harris Wofford (D-PA) who spearheaded the effort.

"We've come a long way, but we still have a long to go," Wofford said. "If Dr. King came back today I think he would not be happy to see it as a day off rather than a day of action."

Leaders of the Day of Service in Queens say that volunteering is a way to keep the spirit of the Civil Rights movement alive for those to young to remember it.

"King awakened the nation to problems black people were having, and our young folks don't even know about it," said Rev. James Artis head pastor of the Sojourner Truth AME Zion church in St. Albans, which is hosting a street clean up and food drive today for area residents.

"You have to take a stand, or it becomes just another holiday where people do nothing," said Artis, who marched with King in the March on Washington in August of 1963.

Other civil rights hands, however, worry that too many are stressing service instead of King's message of racial and economic justice.

"I'm not sure these nice, cozy celebrations in halls and theaters are the right kind of thing," said Rev. Dr. Herbert Daughtry, minister of the House of Lord Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn and a long-time civil rights activist.

"The way to honor King was to do something in the street against some kind of injustice and go to jail. That was the way he was."