Hate Has No Color or Age

This coming Monday is a federal holiday, the observance of the anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Schools and government operations are closed as communities across the country join hands and hearts if only for a moment, to celebrate his life and to consider our progress as a nation in our ongoing journey for equal rights.

To be clear, we're not there. Yet.

But we're closer today than we were yesterday and tomorrow we'll be farther still. That is the reality of our pilgrims' progress (pun intended) and if we continue to push each in our way, progress will not only be inexorable but also inevitable.  

Norwich has always been a city of doers, with a rich ethnic diversity from its earliest days as wave after wave of immigrants took their turns in the mills and factories built along the banks of the three rivers which helped define our city's boundaries and shape its character.

Thamesville, Taftville, and Greeneville together with Bean Hill, Laurel Hill, and the farmlands to the east and northwest of the city offered opportunities to hopeful newcomers and established settlers alike and Norwich thrived because of who we were and what we made of ourselves in the moments we claimed for our own. 

It was not the first time, I suspect, that we discovered we had more in common (aspirations and dogged determination) than the individual differences that separated us one from the other. It's a history and a heritage we would do well to remember not just on Monday when we honor the 95th birthday of Dr. King. 

As has been the case for almost four decades, there will be an observance here on Monday afternoon and you should consider yourself invited.  It’s the 39th Anniversary Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Celebration March and Service beginning at 1:30 pm at the David Ruggles Courtyard in front of our City Hall. 

It’s a rain or shine (or snow and sleet) event and I will confess there have been some years I’ve attended when I’d wondered why Dr. King couldn’t have had his birthday in May-but there’s always just enough preaching, and speeching, with a little singing, to warm anyone’s heart. Afterward, there’s a march to Evans Memorial AME Zion Church on McKinley Avenue for a Freedom Program.  

As a child of the sixties, who came of age when Dr. King was preaching and who taught and shaped every discussion about equal rights and human rights, believing as he did that one was always the other, I was often speechless at the power of his belief and eloquence of his vision that resisted the existence and pervasiveness of poverty and despair that was destroying this country. 

Reinventing American society so that his children together with mine and yours would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" is a part of the legacy of  Dr. King's life and a chapter of our nation's history.

So, when you can, not just this Monday but every day, I hope you'll make time to take part in ceremonies and commemorations celebrating him wherever that may be. I hope this year we can seize the moment to celebrate the dream of Dr. King and make it our own.  And then, every single day use that promise to change the world. Again.
-bill kenny