Black, white and Asian children sat side-by-side, enjoying doughnuts on a day off from the schools they attend together, while civil rights pioneer Lord
Nickens talked of growing up in an era when that couldn't happen.
"I remember this place when we couldn't come in," he said of the Boys and Girls Club building on Burck Street, where more than 50 people gathered Monday to honor the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. "We couldn't come in the front door and we couldn't come in the back door."
The room grew silent as the audience hung on his every word.
King became a world figure because "he wanted to see that every human being on the earth had the same privileges," Nickens said. The civil rights leader dreamed of a day when no one was shunned "because of color of skin or texture of hair."
"To me, there is only one race -- the human race," Nickens said. "That's what the good book says and that's what I believe."
But, the 95-year-old said, it took him a while to get to that place, given the long history of unequal treatment of black citizens.
The county's second annual Martin Luther King Day of Service event was sponsored by NAACP's Frederick County chapter, ENESCO Center for Peace, Boys and Girls Club of Frederick County, Volunteer Frederick, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Alpha Lambda Lambda Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and the Kent Group.
Legacy of service
At the kickoff ceremony, the prelude to events including a voter registration drive and service fair. Speaker after speaker talked of King's legacy of service to others and standing up for personal beliefs.
Volunteer Frederick executive director Lisa Orr invited the crowd to stop by the center afterward, where they could participate in a variety of projects, including making sandwiches for the Frederick Rescue Mission and writing letters to U.S. troops serving abroad.
"This day of service is answering a call put forth by Dr. King more than 40 years ago," she said. "It is a day of action, not apathy.
"And volunteering is more than serving others, you get a lot out of it too," she said, addressing the youngsters in attendance. "It just makes you feel good, you learn skills that you can use in other places, you learn of career options, you make new friends and you learn about your community."
Senitta Conyers of the Chi Theta Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority said her group is concerned about Frederick's political climate and is working hard on a get-out-the-vote initiative.
Malek Crawford, president of the Alpha Lambda Lambda chapter of Omega Psi Phi, drove home the message that it's important for everyone to vote.
"We're going to hold a voter registration drive immediately afterward," he said. "We don't care who you vote for, just that you vote; that's what's important."
Delegate Sue Hecht, D-Frederick, talked of going to school in a time when students were still separated according to race.
Integration began when she was in fifth grade, and she said it wasn't a big deal to her.
"It was just getting to know new friends who were peacefully going to school together," she said, crediting her parents with not teaching her a hatred that would have made it difficult to accept those new friends. "Many people worked to make that happen."
She said she remembers exactly where she was when she heard of King being murdered, and mentioned the irony of violent demonstrations that shut down cities across the country.
"All that violence was the exact opposite of what he stood for," Hecht said.
A moment in history
Steaven Gorden, former president of the local NAACP chapter, said of the violent aftermath of King's death, "Much of it wasn't pretty -- the protests, the violence, the destruction."
Gorden shared the story of missing out on personally witnessing King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
"My employer said, 'if you aren't here tomorrow, don't bother to come in the next day either,'" Gorden said. "I had a choice -- go hear the speech or continue to feed my family."
He knew that choosing to take care of his family was the right thing to do, but said he always regretted missing such an important moment in black history.
He would eventually make it to Washington on King's behalf. Gorden was instrumental in the effort to get King's birthday declared a federal holiday.
"We got the federal holiday and then we had to come back to Frederick County and Frederick city and fight for it to be a local holiday," he said.
But the fight was worth it, he said, because King was worthy of the honor.
"Not only was his last name King, we lost a king -- a great king."
This article was provided by: The Fredrick News
Written by: Marge Neal
