Gov. Tim Walz recalled a particular exchange following the 2017 presidential inauguration, when a seasoned demonstrator for women’s rights turned to him at a march on the National Mall and said, “I can’t believe I’m fighting the same stuff again.”
“Every generation has to fight these fights,” said the Democratic Minnesota governor, three years later, addressing a packed auditorium on Monday to mark the birthday of slain civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
With the upcoming November presidential election, the impeachment crisis and a politically divided nation serving as a silent backdrop, Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan hosted the state’s 34th annual MLK Day Celebration at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in downtown St. Paul.
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While never mentioning President Donald Trump outright, concerns about the rise of hateful rhetoric and divisive national politics punctuated a series of video messages from U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is on the presidential campaign trail, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, all Democrats.
“Every day we teeter on the edge of a constitutional crisis,” said Klobuchar, who urged Americans to continue “calling out hatred and racism and white nationalism … and never forgetting America is a country created and sustained by immigrants.”
Carter, in his video testimonial, echoed the sentiment: “At a time when our politics is filled with rhetoric intended to divide us … life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are we doing for others?”
Themed “For Our Children,” the speaker and performance line-up was introduced by Justin Terrell, executive director of the Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage, and Rebecca Lucero, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
“It’s harder today to see … but I do still believe the arc of history is bending toward a moral universe,” said Flanagan, invoking a much-repeated King quotation that was often used by former President Barack Obama: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
The morning-long event, organized by the Governor’s Council on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, recognized the St. Paul-based youth mentoring nonprofit TruArtSpeaks, led by executive director Tish Jones, and the Duluth-based Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial organization with “Building the Future” and “Civil Rights Champion” awards, respectfully.
A series of organized events this year will culminate in a June remembrance of the events of June 15, 1920, when three black men who had been falsely accused of raping a white woman were removed from a Duluth jail and lynched in front of thousands of onlookers.
Several speakers urged the audience — especially its young members — to vote, the easiest way to become politically visible. Quoting an advertisement he had once come across, Simon said that “failure to vote is not an act of rebellion, it is an act of surrender.”
Bringing her young son out on stage next to her, Remi Kent, global chief marketing officer for the 3M Consumer Business Group, urged the audience to “tackle the lack of inclusion in the workplace” and work to create new opportunities for young people of color. “When there are officials who threaten to detract from that dream, get out and cast your vote,” she said.
Keynote speaker Yara Shahidi, a breakout star of ABC’s comedy series “Black-ish” and spin-off “Grown-ish,” said the latter show has been renewed for a fourth season on the online channel Freeform.
Shahidi, who was born in Minneapolis and spent her early childhood there, said she became eligible to vote in 2018, which had special meaning to her but too often comes across as “an upper-middle-class hobby,” in part because of news jargon seemingly divorced from the everyday concerns of young people.
In Minneapolis, General Mills and the United Negro College Fund hosted former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as the keynote speaker for their 30th annual MLK Holiday Breakfast, which was held at the Minneapolis Armory.
King was born on Jan. 15, 1929. The civil rights leader, who was arrested dozens of times as he led landmark protests and boycotts against segregation in the 1950s and ’60s, was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn.
President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1983 making the third Monday in January a national holiday, and the federal law took effect in 1986.