Remembering Rev. King and 4/4/68 at MLK Park Monument

New Britain's Mary McLeod Bethune Club (MMBC) observed the anniversary of the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 5th -- a memorial  event  club members have organized for most of the 46 years since the civil rights leader was killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

CCSU Anthropology Professor, Dr Evelyn Harris, the featured speaker at the King Monument Memorial held at the MLK city park at the corner of Stanley Street and MLK Boulevard, told a small gathering that New Britain's King monument was one of the first memorials of its kind in the country. Participating in the program were MMBC President Chery Niccolls, NBPD Officer Marcus Burris, Master of Ceremonies; Music Soloist Linda Vickers with Marzell Jackson laying the wreath at the monument. Ward 3 Alderwoman Shirley Black and NAACP President Ron Davis shared remarks at the monument.

Other speakers, including longtime Club President Janice Edwards, recalled that the city's King monument was originally located at East Main and MLK Boulevard on a traffic island, a target of frequent vandalism and even visits from local KKK adherents.  The Bethune Club organized residents to stare down the Klan nonviolently when they showed up and began the effort for a better site.

Alton Brooks, a leader in the effort to establish MLK Park, with New Britain's finest.

With leaders such as Edwards, Alton Brooks and the late former Alderwoman Connie Wilson Collins pushing city government, the little corner park for the King monument was established further up the road. Today inlaid bricks recognize donors from the community who contributed to make MLK Park possible.

Police Officer Marcus Burris and MMBC President Chery Niccolls

 Democratic District Leader Mario Santos and Board of Education member Merrill Gay participated.

Duane Hinkson with sons Dillon and Devon and MMB Club Member Janice Edwards

Tim O'Brien: A Call To Renew Rev. King's Work For Economic Justice

 By Tim O'Brien

This weekend, our nation, state and communities celebrate and remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his accomplishments. It is a time when I have always felt inspired by his work, as a leader, and by the movement that he embodies. No Martin Luther King Day passes without me feeling emboldened and empowered to carry forward work toward building a better future.

I believe that King is our nation's most important hero. Our nation has many great figures, well deserving of our honor, who strove and struggled to build our nation, by, of and for the people. Our nation is built on great ideals - democracy, justice, liberty and a decent life for all. But those ideals have all too often not been met in practice. For African-Americans, the experience was, instead, not just inequality, but the terror of violence and daily humiliation.  The work of King, and the movement he led, was the struggle to breathe life into our country's great ideals. His work was nothing short of making our nation, conceived in greatness, the great nation it was meant to be. He, and so many others, took on the face of grotesque oppression and successfully pushed it back.

King, himself, probably would bristle at the idea of himself being held up in this way. He was an organizer - yes, a community organizer. In that, he knew that, while sometimes a person can symbolize and personify a movement, the real truth is always that the movement is about us all, everyday people. It is people - all the people - who create change for the better, and it is the people - all the people - whose lives are made better from that work. On Martin Luther King Day, we honor King, himself, as well as the many people who struggled and sacrificed in the Civil Rights Movement and the movements for justice and equality before and since.

But King, himself, was extraordinary. He believed so purely in creating a better world. He believed deeply in the goodness of humanity and in our potential to set aside our differences for our common good. He would sacrifice of himself, over and over again, and, when he thought he had no energy left to give, would still muster a little more energy to give away to people thirsting for inspiration and hope.

Thankfully, we have, for the most part, put to rest the question of whether Martin Luther King should be honored as a national hero. Even those who, today, know that their own opinions differ from King's values must at least give lip service to the rightness and greatness of his work. Of course, one of the side effects of that acceptance is that political figures who do not agree with King's real values try to re-interpret his words to fit their own political agendas, such as saying that he would have opposed Affirmative Action, even when it is obvious that King would not have agreed with them. Other politicians try to appear to agree with King by lauding, post-fact, his leadership in winning reforms that are not controversial anymore, such such as doing away with overt "separate but equal" - even while those same politicians, to this day, perpetuate things, like voter suppression, that King would have told them are clearly wrongheaded. While it is easy to criticize defeated injustices, real courage is in challenging current injustices.

I think it is very important to point out, in this time of honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr., that this kind of benign-sounding lip service to the memory of King is intended to prevent a more complete recounting of King's actual values and what he stood for from shining a not-so-flattering light on the agendas many politicians are currently pressing in the halls of government.

Part of the pure goodness of King as a leader was his compulsion to stand up for what was right, no matter what the cost to himself. That was true of his work for civil rights and, in the years leading up to his assassination, it was why he took positions against the Vietnam War, against exploitation of people in other countries and for economic justice for all Americans.

His assassination occurred during his work to organize the Poor People's Campaign, which was meant to follow up on the important work for civil rights - even more directly challenging the systems of injustice in the country by advocating for economic justice. He asked, "What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn't earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?" ¹  He spoke for economic justice as an essential part of the promise of our nation - "If a man doesn't have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists." ² And this was not only to advance communities of color, noting that white Americans also faced economic oppression and were likewise in need of reforms.

King challenged our nation to adopt reforms to make the free market work for everyone, African-American, Latino, white - everyone. Needless to say, in doing that, he was upsetting some very, very powerfulful monied interests in our country. "We have so energetically mastered production that we now must give attention to distribution," he wrote, and clearly laid out that this meant that, "We must create full employment or we must create incomes..." ³

The Poor People's Campaign in 1968 was organized to demand adoption of an Economic and Social Bill of Rights to make the promise of our nation real for everyone. The Economic and Social Bill of Rights (in a draft written in February, 1968, before King's assassination ⁴) was to proclaim:

"The Right of every employable citizen to a decent job." It is worth pointing out how this called for "good jobs", not just "dead end jobs," and was clear that it should be the responsibility of the country to ensure that this happened. The draft Economic and Social Bill of Rights proposed an ambitious federal job-creation program to make this a reality.

"The right of every citizen to a minimum income." A guaranteed standard of living for people, "too young, too old or too handicapped to work."

"The right of a decent house and the free choice of neighborhood." The draft Economic and Social Bill of Rights challenged that the more affluent were benefitted when, "Federally subsidized credit built suburbs and federally supported roads to access [them]," while other public spending displaced neighborhoods where whites and people of color of more modest means lived. It pointed out that, amidst a paucity of support for affordable housing, people of modest means were left to suffer in slum housing conditions. The proposed solution was the creation of many more units of decent, affordable housing.

"The right to an adequate education." Noting gross inequities in educational attainment along racial lines and that "only out-and-out racists believe that this tragedy is a consequence of inherent deficiency on the part of the child...", the draft Economic and Social Bill of Rights proposed, "a massive effort to upgrade the education available to" both children of color and white children and to fund higher education so that all Americans could afford to attend.

"The right to participate in the decision making process." The draft Economic and Social Bill of Rights placed importance on participatory democracy, "political action and voting protection."

"The right to the full benefit of modern science in health care." Noting the inhuman differences in health and mortality based upon income, the draft Economic and Social Bill of Rights proposed extending Medicare to everyone in America.

This draft⁵ of the Economic and Social Bill of Rights was clear that greater economic equity should be considered as part of America's great ideals and Constitutional promise: "Without these rights, neither the black and white poor, and even some who are not poor, can really possess the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. With these rights, the United States could, by the two hundredth anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, take giant steps toward redeeming the American dream."

The assassination of Martin Luther King took the great measure of the energy away from the Poor People's Campaign. It still went on as planned that summer, but it ended, having not achieved the goals for which King and so many others strove. As we well know, the objectives of the campaign, expressed in the Economic and Social Bill of Rights, for the most part, have yet to be achieved. Far from it, these are all, very much, front burner issues in our current politics. In the areas where there have been advances, those advances are now under powerful attack. In other areas, especially in the area of jobs, not having in place now what King advocated then makes middle class and poor people worse off now than they would have been. And when elected officials, such as President Barack Obama and our own Governor Dannel Malloy, press for changes that advance King's ideals, they must labor against difficult political headwinds.

Given what Martin Luther King advocated for when he was with us, it is clear that, were he alive today, he would be pressing hard for significant change. It is no wonder than many politicians of today will spend their Martin Luther King Day glossing over the full depth of what King believed in. If they acknowledged his real policy objectives, they would have to admit that they disagree with what King would have wanted them to do.

So let us make this Martin Luther King Day one of renewing our commitment to the movement and the great and important objectives for which King gave his life. Let us not allow people who oppose justice, equality and fairness for all to dissuade us from doing what is right through their various tactics of harsh mean-spiritedness and silver-tongued distraction. King taught us that people of ill intent would try to make it difficult for people who stand-up what is right.  He also taught us that, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ⁶

We can, in our nation, our state and our communities have a better, fairer, more just, more equitable future for ourselves and generations to come - one that we can all share. Now, more than ever, we must renew the work that our great national hero, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., championed.

---

1 Joe Fassler, "'All Labor Has Dignity': Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Fight for Economic Justice", The Atlantic, February 22, 2011
2 Mark Engler, "Dr. Martin Luther King's Economics: Through Jobs, Freedom", The Nation, January 15, 2010
3 Mark Engler, "Dr. Martin Luther King's Economics: Through Jobs, Freedom", The Nation, January 15, 2010
4 "Economic and Social Bill of Rights", King Center online document repository
5 After King's assassination, the Committee of 100 created the version of the Economic and Social Bill of Rights that was advocated during the Campaign, which called for
“a meaningful job at a living wage for every employable citizen.”, “a secure and adequate income for all who cannot find jobs or for whom employment is inappropriate”, “access to land as a means to income and livelihood”, “access to capital as a means of full participation in the economic life of America” and “the right of the people to 'play a truly significant role' in shaping government programs design and implementation”, Amy Nathan Wright,"Unfinished Business", (2007) pages 195–197

6 NPR Staff"King's Son And Friend Talk New Memorial, Media", NPR website

[ Tim O'Brien is the former Mayor of New Britain and State Representative from the 24th District]

Remembering The March and Speech From the "Global Village"

The March for Jobs and Freedom culminating in the "Dream" speech that occurred 50 years ago today stirred the social consciences of many more than the 250,000 who were on the Washington mall that hot summer day in Washington, D.C.

All of us who are old enough have no business remembering where we were on that Wednesday afternoon so long ago.  But we do. "The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village," said a prophetic Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s at about the time there was a TV in virtually every living room

I was 13 about to enter 9th grade in Lynn, MA. The television was on in our Clarendon Avenue apartment and I knew the live network coverage in black and white was connecting  me to something big and historic.  Former President Bill Clinton, praising the marchers at todays' commemoration at the Lincoln Memorial, said he too joined the march through the medium as a 17 year old in Arkansas.

Said Clinton:

This march and that speech changed America. They opened minds, they melted hearts and they moved millions, including a 17-year-old boy watching alone in his home in Arkansas. (Applause.) It was an empowering moment, but also an empowered moment. As the great chronicler of those years, Taylor Branch, wrote: The movement here gained the force to open, quote, “the stubborn gates of freedom,” and out flowed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, immigration reform, Medicare, Medicaid, open housing.

King's speech and the march brought millions of people together in hope and possibility that August day.  And television elevated the event in the cause of social justice.

Less than three months after the March for Jobs and Freedom  I and many others would never forget where we were 50 years later.  We spent many more hours  in front of the  black and white TVs --- this time part of a global village connected in loss and sorrow over President Kennedy's  assassination.

Access For All: New Britain Will Celebrate 23rd Anniversary of ADA Wednesday, July 24th

New Britain will observe the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — on Wednesday, July 24th,  with a “Walk and Roll” event around Walnut Hill Park beginning a 5:30 p.m.

The City, under the auspices of Mayor O’Brien and the Commission on Persons with Disabilities, is sponsoring the event that will include ice cream sundaes, tee-shirts and music at the band shell.

Persons who rely on wheel chairs and scooters to get around will participate to celebrate the  civil rights law that “prohibits discrimination and ensures equal opportunity for persons with disabilities  in employment, state and local government services, public accommodations, commercial facilities, and transportation.”

www.cfgnb.org 

The ADA became law in July 1990 with adoption of legislation sponsored by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin.   In 2010, on the 20th anniversary of the ADA, Harkin said:

“The Americans with Disabilities Act — signed into law on July 26, 1990 — has been described as the Emancipation Proclamation for people with disabilities. It sets four goals for people with disabilities: equal opportunity, full participation, independent living and economic self-sufficiency.  But at its heart, the ADA is simple. In the words of one activist, this landmark law is about securing for people with disabilities the most fundamental of rights: “the right to live in the world.” It ensures they can go places and do things that other Americans take for granted.  I will always remember a young Iowan named Danette Crawford. In 1990, she was just 14. She used a wheelchair and lived with great pain. But she campaigned hard for the ADA. When I told her that the ADA would mean better educational opportunities and prevent workplace discrimination, Danette said: “Those things are very important. But, you know, what I really want to do is just be able to go out and buy a pair of shoes like anybody else.”

The ADA will be an enduring part of Senator Harkin’s legacy. He will not be seeking re-election in 2014.

New Superintendent Search Missed Key, Controversial Information on Kelt Cooper

Kelt Cooper, the choice of the Board of Education (BOE) to lead New Britain schools, rose to the top of the finalist list based on a good educational resume, accomplishments with English Language Learners  and extensive experience in diverse districts in Arizona and Texas.

The winnowing process concluded after two days of interviews by advisory committees and the BOE.  In a divided vote that stood at 5 to 5 during a tense meeting,  Cooper finally got the nod 6 to 4  and may be the schools' chief  come  July 1 subject to contract negotiations and a critically important site visit to the Texas district of Del Rio where he is superintendent now.

On Wednesday and the day of the decision, however, the process received a disturbing jolt of information about Mr. Cooper that did not turn up during the vetting process.

I found out about it from a retired New Britain music teacher and passionate advocate for education who posted on her Facebook page a disturbing story from the Texas Observer after what must have been a cursory search on the web.  

The balanced and thoroughly researched story, written by Melissa Del Bosque,  covers Superintendent Cooper's  controversial actions to expel students who allegedly were crossing over the Del Rio International Toll Bridge from Ciudad Acuna. The word allegedly is important here because Cooper turned out to be wrong about most of the children nabbed at the border by school employees who passed out warnings.  All but a few were  legally entitled to an education in his district. Nothing like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly to obstruct the civil rights of immigrant children.

From the Observer story:

All but 20 of the approximately 200 students issued warnings on Sept. 9 eventually returned to Del Rio schools. Texas RioGrande Legal Aid assisted at least 15 families who didn't meet the new residency requirements imposed by Cooper. Some missed school for up to four weeks. But the crackdown, and Cooper's blunt comments to the press about his actions, dredged up lingering racial division in Del Rio, where Mexican Americans have fought for equal education rights for more than century.
Mexican Americans in Del Rio say that whatever the legalities, Cooper's actions had a chilling effect that could hinder their efforts to enroll more children in school. "It's not in our interest to keep children who are U.S. citizens from getting a proper education," says Alpha Hernandez, another attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. "Every year some children don't get registered. I've seen children 7- or 8- years-old that have never attended school. We are already suffering from high unemployment and low educational achievement."
Cooper sees the issue as clear-cut. It was never a question of immigration status, he says, but of residency. "If 200 children crossing at 6:30 on a Wednesday morning is not cause enough to be suspicious, then I don't know what is," he says. "No, I guess they all have sick aunts because that's what a lot of them said.

Cooper, who received lots of national media attention from his moves and kudos from anti-immigrant forces, maintains he was just trying to enforce state law about residency requirements in organizing a border patrol that randomly stopped children and their families coming over  the border.   But the vigilante-like actions resulted in threatening notices to students who, when the facts were known,  had the legal status to be enrolled in the school district.

The New Britain Board of Education put their faith and money in the  IA-based firm of Ray & Associates.  But when crunch time came the firm's consultant had concluded the information about Cooper's controversial and excessive "enforcement" actions were irrelevant to New Britain's search.

However this search for a superintendent ends, it is clear Board of Education members were denied an important piece of information that should have been known during the screening process, not on decision day.

What Would a 21st Century Rev. King Be Saying and Doing in 2012?

Our national day to remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday is an opportunity to focus and ramp up the political debate in 2012 on "saving the middle class" and addressing "income inequality" that has been, from all reports, getting worse since the early 1970s.

Over the last year "Tea Bag" politicians, lavishly funded by unlimited corporate money, have sought to make the income gap worse, launching an unprecedented assault on the public sector and collective bargaining.

Tune in to any Republican Presidential debate for the latest ways and means to maximize income insecurity for working and middle income Americans. Or listen to the likes of Boehner and McConnell as they trash the very moderate moves of Obama to mitigate income inequality and preserve a social contract so vital to a free society.

So what would a 21st Century Martin Luther King be saying about all of this?

From his splendid words and many deeds we already can surmise that he would be leading a moral charge to "occupy" every city and town on behalf of the 99%; he would be working with others to close the gap in incomes and establish a level economic playing field.

Most certainly, Rev. King would be lending his voice to an organized labor movement that over time has been shrinking in direct correlation to the falling incomes of most Americans.

Proof of what he would be saying now comes with remembering what he was doing during his last hours on this earth.

4 April 2007

I remember exactly where I was on April 4, 1968, the day the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. 

That week day, like many others in my senior year at Lynn English High School, I drove to Bradlee’s Department store on the Lynnway in Lynn, Massachusetts to punch in for the evening shift, earning some money before entering Boston University and its College of Basic Studies in the fall of 1968.

The news spread quickly that Thursday evening that King was dead. 

It didn’t take long to realize that my shift as a retail clerk would be different from all the others. The store quickly emptied out. Not a customer in sight all night. No need for Mr. Silverman, the shaken and somber store manager, to send me out on outside carriage control. The bullets in Memphis were enough to bring a normal business day to a halt in Lynn and most of the nation. Just five short years before I had come home from junior high on a late summer day to watch King deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech – an event that would inspire so many to become active in politics and protest. 

There are many good remembrances of what King said and stood for on his national holiday. But not so much is said on this anniversary of the day he died. It's worth remembering on his January holiday, April 4th and throughout the year why King was in Memphis on a day I will never forget. 

By 1968, Rev. King was widening the concerns of his movement. In his book Where Do We Go From Here? King opposed a Vietnam policy that had begun to break the nation further apart. The lunchroom sit-ins and battles over accommodations and voting rights were giving way to a broader agenda. He was planning a new march on Washington – “the Poor People’s Campaign” -- when he decided to take up the cause of 1,300 black sanitation workers in Memphis, a city of southern segregation, where the white power structure opposed the right to unionize and the Mayor vowed never to bargain in good faith in a way that would give the sanitation workers their dignity. 

The strike and a citywide economic boycott were a cause King knew he could not ignore.

King’s prophetic “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” speech on the eve of the assassination is his best known from Memphis. But two weeks earlier, on March 18th, King galvanized support for strikers by saying: “So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs…..One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive.” 

Following King’s assassination, the Memphis power structure gave up its intransigence – recognizing the AFSCME union, awarding pay raises and instituting merit promotions. 

King’s campaign for striking sanitation workers reaffirmed his greatness at the hour of his death and resonates today in the cause of social and economic justice. 

That is worth remembering most from the day he died.

from  http://nbpoliticus.blogspot.com/2007/04/39-years-ago-today.html

Remembering Rev. King and the Labor Movement - Again

Ultra-conservative radio host Dan Lovallo was distorting the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. the other day.  He joined a caller in bashing labor unions by objecting to unions' honoring and remembering King for his strong support of organized labor generally and public employee unions specifically.  It's all part of Lovallo's and his drive-time competition's (Former Public Employee John Rowland)  steady trash talk against many who work in the public sector.  Lovallo's distortions aside, the anniversary of Rev. King's assassination on April 4th is a sad and irrefutable reminder that King gave his life for both civil and economic rights, especially the right of public employees to bargain collectively. In this season of attacks against labor rights in the public sector Rev. King should be remembered for his close allegiance with labor. It's something if you are of a certain age you don't forget:

04 APRIL 2007

39 Years Ago Today

I remember exactly where I was on April 4, 1968. Thirty nine years ago today the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. 

That week day, like many others in my senior year in high school, I drove to Bradlee’s Department store on the Lynnway in Lynn, Massachusetts to punch in for the evening shift earning some money before entering Boston University in the fall. 

The news spread quickly that Thursday evening that King was dead. It didn’t take long to realize that my shift as a retail clerk would be different from all the others. The store quickly emptied out. Not a customer in sight all night. No need for Mr. Silverman, the shaken and somber store manager, to send me out on outside carriage control. The bullets in Memphis were enough to bring a normal business day to a halt in Lynn and most of the nation. Just five short years before I had come home from junior high on a late summer day to watch King deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech – an event that would inspire so many of us to become active in politics and protest. 

There are many good remembrances of what King said and stood for on his national holiday In January every year, but not so much is being said on this anniversary of the day he died. It's worth remembering on April 4th and throughout the year why King was in Memphis on a day I will never forget. 

By 1968, Rev. King was widening the concerns of his movement. In Where Do We Go From Here? King opposed a Vietnam policy that had begun to break the nation further apart. The lunchroom sit-ins and battles over accommodations and voting rights were giving way to a broader agenda. He was planning a new march on Washington – “the Poor People’s Campaign” -- when he decided to take up the cause of 1,300 Black sanitation workers in Memphis, a city of southern segregation, where the white power structure opposed the right to unionize and the Mayor vowed never to bargain in good faith in a way that would give the sanitation workers their dignity. The strike and a citywide economic boycott were a cause King knew he could not ignore.

King’s prophetic “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” speech on the eve of the assassination is his best known from Memphis. But two weeks earlier, on March 18th, King galvanized support for strikers by saying: “So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs…..One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive.” Following King’s assassination, the Memphis power structure gave up its intransigence – recognizing the union, awarding pay raises and instituting merit promotions. 

King’s campaign for striking sanitation workers reaffirmed his greatness at the hour of his death and resonates today in the cause of social and economic justice. That is worth remembering most from the day he died.

from  http://nbpoliticus.blogspot.com/2007/04/39-years-ago-today.html

Party For State Rep. Sanchez: Affirming the American Dream in New Britain

Ward 3 Ald. Shirley Black and
Rep. Bobby Sanchez
At Fiesta Latina

Family, friends and colleagues were on hand at the Puerto Rican Society Friday March 18th to celebrate the election of Bobby Sanchez as the state representative from the 25th Assembly District in New Britain.   

Sanchez, the Democratic Town Committee Vice Chair and Board of Education member, was elected in the February 22nd special election to the state assembly seat . He succeeded John Geragosian, one  of the new state Auditors of Public Accounts.

Like many a gathering at the Puerto Rican Society the “Fiesta Latina” had plenty of home-made dishes of chicken, pork, rice and beans. Sanchez, a Washington Street resident and human services professional,  welcomed attendees many of whom have worked with Sanchez through the years to register voters and promote turnouts on election days.  Ward 5 Ald.  Roy Centeno and DTC member Francisco Cuin introduced other elected officials during a brief program , including  State Rep. Tim O’Brien, Ward 3 Ald. Shirley Black and BOE President Sharon Beloin-Saavedra.  

Less than a month in state office, Sanchez says he’s absorbed in reading the many bills he’ll vote on. He faces a long week of  sessions on the finance, revenue and bonding committee as lawmakers work on a state budget of “shared sacrifice.”  His knowledge and career work in Head Start and social service programs will serve him well on the Education Committee, his other major assignment as a freshman lawmaker.

Sanchez, a New Britain native, reminded us that he was a child of the sixties. His immigrant parents enrolled him in the city’s first Head Start classroom at Saint Mary’s Church-- the early childhood program that was part of the wave of social and civil rights laws enacted and for which people gave their lives to bring about just a generation ago.  

The significance of the celebration for Sanchez was not lost on anyone in attendance. Sanchez’ election to state office is a milestone for the Latino community whose numbers, according to the 2010 census, rise rapidly in city and suburb alike in Connecticut.  Pete Rosa came by to wish Sanchez well. Rosa, a former BOE member and New Britain Alderman, was New Britain’s first citizen of Puerto Rican background to run and win elective office. It was not so long ago that Rosa, for his willingness to run and hold office, endured phone threats from anonymous voices fixated on ethnic division and hate in the city.  

That Sanchez has been elected a state representative is a solid sign of progress in New Britain. It says that people wanting to be part of politics and government will have opportunities regardless of  ethnic background or economic standing. It says that New Britain is “a city for all people”.

Pete Hamill, the author and journalist, would agree. He once remembered looking out his “tenement window” in Brooklyn in his youth and seeing  the Statue of Liberty and the New York City skyline.  

“They weren’t symbols of New York; they stood for America itself......Those symbols, made visible and concrete by the efforts of human beings, were not lies. The first said that here, in these United States, men and women were free of the ancient curses of class, iron tradition, religious division. An Irish Catholic from bigoted Belfast, a Jew from some forlorn and isolated Russian shtetl, an Italian from the eroded wastes of the Mezzogiorno: all were free. Each was the political equal of the richest man in the country, able to cast a vote in free elections, possessed of rights guaranteed on paper in the Constitution of the United States. Here, no man or woman would ever genuflect before a king. Here, no child would shiver in fear during the terrors of a pogrom. Here, no feudal don would exercise arbitrary powers of life and death. Not here. Not ever. This was America. Here you could imagine a glorious future. Here, dreams really did come true.  

[From “America: The Place Where Dreams Still Come True” by Pete Hamill]

The Nomination: Clinton, Obama, LBJ and Martin Luther King

In the back and forth of the Democratic Presidential primary season Hillary Clinton's remarks about Rev. Martin Luther King, Lyndon Johnson and civil rights sparked an unfortunate exchange between hers and the Obama forces.

Clinton was trying to make a point about governing, but her remarks were criticized for pitting Lyndon Johnson's delivery of landmark civil rights laws with the movement led by Rev. King -- all of this in the context of her running against a rapidly rising African American politician who ultimately deprived her of the nomination.

Barack Obama's acceptance speech on Thursday at the Denver convention provides a better opportunity to bring up King, Johnson, the presidency and the Democratic Party.

On 8/28 45 years ago, Rev. Martin Luther King delivered his "Dream" speech -- one of the most heard and admired pieces of oratory in U.S. history. King's speech and the movement he led pushed Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats to forge ahead with stronger, landmark civil rights laws for voting rights, accommodations and other aspects of equal opportunity in 1964 and 1965.

Clinton's intent was not to diminish the civil rights struggle but to say King's movement and Johnson's power and legislative acumen were not mutually exclusive. One complemented the other. The Southerner Johnson knew the consequences. "There goes the South for a generation," Johnson was quoted when he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law, predicting his party would lose elections and the "solid" South for many years as they surely did.

And now should it surprise anyone that Obama's multi-cultural background is still fodder for a GOP divide and conquer strategy first invoked by Richard Nixon in 1968?

Obama needs to draw the distinctions sharply between his vision and that of John McCain, especially on economics and the interests of people who "work hard and play by the rules." In doing so, he should revisit the King and Johnson legacy, perhaps noting that Clinton wasn't dissing King over LBJ at all.

The betting here is he will recall that long ago August 28th as he prepares to lead Democrats into the fall election. The moment will not be lost on Obama that his political ascendency this week is a direct consequence of both King's movement and Johnson's Democrats and what was said and done a generation ago. Obama's nomination will not be the end all for civil rights struggle, but a fulfillment of a huge piece of the "Dream".

(Photo Credit: Johnson Library and Museum from wikimedia.org)