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ORONO – As people across the state and country on Monday celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day to honor the slain civil rights leader’s life and work, the Maine Community Foundation announced the creation of a $1 million People of Color Fund.
University of Maine officials also unveiled pictures of a conceptual design for a Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King memorial garden that will be located on the Orono campus behind Memorial Union near the Advanced Manufacturing Center.
Both announcements were made during the 12th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast at UM. The event was co-hosted by the Greater Bangor Area National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the university.
The $1 million fund will be run by Maine people of color with a goal of addressing racial equality issues in the state, according to Meredith Jones, the Maine Community Foundation vice president of program development and grant making.
A statewide organization with offices in Ellsworth and Portland, the Maine Community Foundation works in partnership with donors and community groups to strengthen Maine.
The memorial garden at the university will serve as a reminder of King’s legacy “so that every single day, our students … will have an opportunity to reflect on what is arguably their responsibility to do,” said Robert Dana, UM vice president for student affairs and dean of students. “Part of going to college is both a privilege, but a responsibility as well.”
The memorial project was first announced during last year’s breakfast, but the plan now has been fleshed out and work should begin this spring. The cost of the project and final design hasn’t been determined, according to UM spokesman Joe Carr.
The celebration of the life and teachings of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. should not be marked as just another holiday as often is the case, according to University of Maine professor Doug Allen, the keynote speaker of Monday’s breakfast.
“Every year we have all over the United States wonderful celebrations for King’s birthday. To me, there’s something that isn’t right about them,” he said.
Allen, a peace activist, pointed out that powerful and wealthy people around the country praise King on his birthday, saying that, “He was a great man and we should follow his model.”
But if he were alive, that’s not what powerful and wealthy people would say about the man who motivated others to take unpopular action in a difficult time.
“He’s a troublemaker,” Allen said. “That’s what many of these same people would be saying.
“I think every year what we often get around the country is like a Hallmark greeting card,” Allen said. “Hatred is awful. War is awful. Love is good. Racism is evil. Have a nice day.”
“We need to celebrate King, but we only honor King if we use the day to raise our consciousness so that we can then understand and apply King’s teachings and methods,” Allen said.
Throughout his remarks, Allen brought up current events and their relevance to King’s dream – the war in Iraq, the economic disparity between classes, and challenges that face the United States and its people every day.
“King, his example, his teachings, his methods, I believe are more relevant and more desperately needed today than ever,” Allen said.
Other speakers who preceded Allen conveyed similar sentiments.
“If America’s soul becomes poisoned, the autopsy must read Iraq,” state Sen. Elizabeth Schneider, D-Orono, said. “None of the things we claim to be fighting for are involved. Somehow the madness must stop.”
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, and a representative from U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s office also shared remarks Monday with the approximately 250 people in attendance.
“It’s been a very difficult year for us as many of you know,” Greater Bangor Area NAACP President Joseph Perry said.
There has been one crisis after another for the chapter, some of which could have been avoided with communication, Perry said. A few weeks ago, two Martin Luther King Jr. breakfasts were scheduled for the same time at UM, one organized by the local NAACP, the other by former Bangor Area NAACP President James Varner, who canceled his event.
That confusion and controversy was set aside Monday as people filled Stodder Commons to celebrate the life of the renowned civil rights activist.
In addition to the event at UM, a breakfast was sponsored in southern Maine by the Portland branch of the NAACP followed by a march to Monument Square where a commemorative wreath was laid.
As keynote speaker at the Portland event, Susan Rice, an adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, renewed King’s call for social and economic justice.
“Let us allow ourselves to dream again,” said Rice, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution with expertise in foreign policy and national security.
She called on the nation to embrace its founding value of equality to gain ground against worldwide threats such as terrorism, poverty and global warming.
Rice, who is black and whose mother grew up in Portland’s Munjoy Hill neighborhood, said her family sent four children to Bowdoin and one to Radcliffe and never used race as an obstacle or an excuse.
She described herself as “a descendant and a direct beneficiary of the vision and sacrifice of Dr. Martin Luther King and all of those who fought and the many who died for our freedom, our dignity and for equal opportunity.”
Other events in King’s memory were held at schools and churches across the state and country.
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