Virginia's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission

01/23/2023

In 2023, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have turned 94 years old. Senator Jennifer McClellan, chair of the Commission, marked the anniversary of his birth and the King Holiday with remarks on the floor of the Senate of Virginia.

Monday, January 16, 2023

Madame President and colleagues:

Yesterday, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have turned 94 years old.

Today, on the holiday that bears his name, and to honor his memory and legacy, Americans are encouraged to engage in a day of service.

Today also is a day when we remember Dr. King’s profound messages of love, of peace, of freedom and equality. It is fitting that we remember and repeat his words and keep them in our minds and close to our hearts, today and every day.

The Virginia Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission is charged with the task of honoring Dr. King’s life and legacy and continuing his work. As chair of the commission, the enormity of that task is never far from my mind, nor is the question of how we can work toward his vision of a Beloved Community.

The dream of the Beloved Community, in which peace, justice, and love prevail over hatred and division, is uncontroversial. I believe that every one of us wants to live in that world.

I would ask though, that today when we remember Dr. King’s legacy of love and peace, we also remember this: that during his life, he was subject to fierce opposition. He was threatened and he was imprisoned. He was surveilled by the FBI. At the age of 29, he was stabbed at a book signing and nearly died. At the age of 39, he was killed by an assassin’s bullet. Through it all and until his death, he remained unfailingly dedicated and courageous.

His messages of love and peace are full of hope, and they inspire us. Like most of us do, Dr. King wanted an end to racism, an end to war, and an end to poverty. He had an uncommonly eloquent way of expressing it. But beyond wanting it, through his words, actions, and leadership he showed that discomfort, disruption, resistance, self-liberation, and a full overturning of the status quo were necessary to get there. During his lifetime, this made him a radical figure. This would still make him a radical figure today.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Everyone remembers and quotes the end of the speech. But too many ignore the rest of it. Dr. King talked about more than just treating people the same regardless of color. He talked about redressing inequity in our nation, making the reality of our nation match the promise of its founding principles, the fierce urgency of now to do so, and of the dangerous repercussions of doing nothing.

Dr. King framed his speech in the historic context—one century after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which served as “a great beacon light of hope” to millions of enslaved people who had been “seared in the flames of withering injustice.”

Yet 100 years after the hope and promise of that document, Black Americans still had not achieved full freedom and equality, but instead were “sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination,” living “on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity,” languishing “in the corners of American society . . . an exile in his own land.”

The purpose of the March on Washington was “to dramatize a shameful condition”—the chasm between the promise of equality and liberty in our nation’s founding documents and the emancipation proclamation and the reality for Black Americans in 1963.

To put a finer point on it, King declared the purpose of the March was “to cash a check.”

He reminded us that, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men,”—and I would add today, women—would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ”

The March was to call out America for defaulting on this promissory note.

And to answer the question of so many of the day “when will you be satisfied?”—as though if he made sufficient progress in gaining new civil rights, it would be time to rest after a battle well fought.

If Dr. King were with us today, he would not be satisfied. He would not be satisfied that racism and the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow still haunt our nation.

He would not be satisfied while consumerism and materialism remain woven into the fabric of our society.

He would not be satisfied in a world where nations are quick to take military action and human lives are treated as dispensable.

He would not be satisfied when there is no time to mourn the victims of one mass shooting before more lives are taken in the next.

He would not be satisfied while a climate crisis looms and governments delay meaningful action.

“No, no, we are not satisfied,” Dr. King said in his speech. “And we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

As we remember his life today, let us also remember that when he spoke of his dream, he also admonished us that “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.”

Let us remember that Dr. King struggled. Let us remember that Dr. King changed the world. And let us remember that still, Dr. King was not satisfied.

Next month also marks the 55th anniversary of the Koerner Commission report examining the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and providing recommendations for the future.

The report’s recommendations included creating new jobs, constructing new housing, and putting an end to de facto segregation in order to wipe out the destructive ghetto environment. And the creation of government programs to provide needed services, to hire more diverse and sensitive police forces and, most notably, to invest billions in housing programs aimed at breaking up residential segregation.

Dr. King called the report a "physician's warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life. ” Indeed, the report echoed the framework Dr. King laid out in his final book “Where Do We Go From Here.”

But nobody listened.

To the contrary, the backlash to the Report and the civil rights gains made by African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s was immediate, culminating in the racially exploitative “Southern Strategy” that elected Richard Nixon in 1968.

This backlash was reminiscent of the Jim Crow laws enacted at the turn of the 20th Century that struck at the social, economic, and political gains former slaves made during Reconstruction.

Over the past few years we’ve seen other backlashes to the gains made by African Americans, women, and other historically marginalized groups over the past 50 years, culminating in the election of Barack Obama—and the election of Donald Trump and the re-emergence of explicit white supremacy, as seen at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and the January 6th Insurrection.

And we saw it in response to generational changes made in the wake of George Floyd’s murder culminating in calls to ban critical race theory and coordinated campaign to intimidate teachers and school board members who seek to teach a complete, accurate history of our nation.

Yet now is not the time to hide from our history. Now is not a time to retreat, but to rededicate ourselves to building the Beloved Community.
For 60 years later, we still seek to redeem the promissory note of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for all Americans and make the Dream a Reality.

This year’s theme for today as established by the King Center in Atlanta is “It starts with me: Cultivating a Beloved Community Mindset to Transform Unjust Systems”.

It starts with me.

It starts with you.

This theme is appropriate, for we cannot leave it to our institutions—government, higher education, the business community, and others.

For our institutions are made up of people.

And people believe, act, and establish priorities based on what they know, experience, and understand.

So I challenge you to honor Dr. King today and everyday by continuing his work and ask yourself, “What am I doing to achieve Dr. King’s dream of a Beloved Community?”

“How am I using my voice and platform to move the institutions to which I belong to achieve the Beloved Community?”

Because Dr. King knew he wouldn’t see it in his lifetime. But we can strive to see it within ours.

Madame President, I move that when the Senate adjourns today, it does so in memory and honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

08/28/2022

On this anniversary of the March on Washington, remember that it was a march for Jobs and Freedom.

Listen to/read the whole speech, not just the end.

Americans across the U.S. are celebrating King's legacy this weekend. One way to reflect on his life and message is by revisiting his celebrated 1963 speech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial.

04/04/2022

Today, our Chair, Sen. Jennifer McClellan reflected on the 54th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination and moved that the Senate of Virginia adjourn in his honor and memory.

Today to commemorate the 54th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination,. Senator McClellan reflected on his life and legacy and moved that the Virginia Senate...

04/04/2022

54 years ago this evening, Dr. King gave his final speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. His final words to us:

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

"And I don't mind.

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

"And so I'm happy, tonight.

"I'm not worried about anything.

"I'm not fearing any man!

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!"

Audio http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm

03/29/2022

Over 4,000 racial terror lynchings were documented in the South between 1877 and 1950.

Over 100 were in Virginia, which became the first state to make lynching a state crime in 1928.

Rep. Leonidis C. Dyer introduced federal anti-lynching legislation in 1918.

104 years later, lynching is now a federal hate crime as President Joe Biden signs The Emmett Till

Learn more about our work to tell The History of Lynching in Virginia at http://mlkcommission.dls.virginia.gov/lynchinginvirginia.html

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-president-biden-signs-the-emmett-till-anti-lynching-bill-into-law

Biden acknowledged the long delay, stressing how the violent deaths of Black Americans were used to intimidate them and prevent them from voting simply because of their skin color.

01/24/2022

Thursday, February 3, at 12 p.m. | SHELF LIFE—The Silent Shore with Charles L. Chavis, Jr.

The Virginia Center for the Book at Virginia Humanities, in partnership with the Maryland Center for the Book at Maryland Humanities, presents this free virtual event, in which Charles L. Chavis, Jr. discusses his book, The Silent Shore: The Lynching of Matthew Williams and the Politics of Racism in the Free State.

The MLK Commission's History of Lynching in Virginia Work Group is a community partner in this event.

Charles L. Chavis, Jr. (The Silent Shore: The Lynching of Matthew Williams and the Politics of Racism in the Free State) discusses his book.

01/18/2022

In honor of Dr. King on the 2022 King Holiday yesterday, the Commission's chair, Senator Jennifer L. McClellan, delivered the remarks below on the floor of the Senate of Virginia.

FLOOR STATEMENT
Virginia Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission
January 17, 2022
Senator Jennifer L. McClellan, Chair

Madame President and colleagues:

Today on the King Holiday, we honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who would have turned 93 years old on Saturday.

This session also marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Virginia Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission, created to honor his legacy, which I proudly chair. The Commission was created in 1992 by legislation sponsored by Delegate William P. Robinson, Jr., who would become the Commission's first chair. The Commission was created to honor the memory and legacy of Dr. King, and to continue his work through educational, historical and cultural programs, public policy analysis, and public discourse on contemporary issues, in particular racial, economic and social justice, academic scholarship, and community service.

Over the past 30 years our progress has at times been slow, but looking back, we can see its forward trajectory.

As Chair of the Commission, I have studied the vast body of work written and spoken by Dr. King over the course of his public life. I want to focus on 2 of them today.

Over the past year, I have heard many people, including our new Governor, quote Dr. King’s most famous line from his I Have A Dream Speech - “I have a dream that little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I am sad to say, it is obvious that too many people have not read the entire speech. Or the majority of speeches Dr. King gave over his lifetime.

Dr. King’s speech at the March on Washington was not simply about treating people the same regardless of color.
It was about redressing over a century of inequity in our nation.
It was about making the reality of our nation match the promise of its founding principles.

It was about the fierce urgency of taking action immediately - and of the dangerous repercussions of failing to do so.

Dr. King framed his speech in the historic context - one century after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which served as “a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”

Dr. King pointed out that 100 years after the hope and promise of that document, Black Americans still had not achieved full freedom and equality, but instead were “sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination,” living “on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity,” languishing “in the corners of American society . . . an exile in his own land.”

The purpose of the March on Washington was “to dramatize a shameful condition” - the chasm between the promise of equality and liberty in our nation’s founding documents and the emancipation proclamation and the reality for Black Americans in 1963.

To put a finer point on it, King declared the purpose of the March was “to cash a check.”

He reminded us that “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The March was to call out America for defaulting on this promissory note - and to take action immediately.

And he outlined the work that must be done.

And great progress was made a year later with the Civil Rights Act of1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But when Jim Crow legally ended with those victories, the work wasn’t finished.

For the rest of his life, Dr. King struggled with the question of what’s next. As he titled his final book: "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?"

Reflecting upon the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King discussed the question of what African Americans should do with their new freedoms.

He concluded that all Americans must unite in order to fight poverty and create a fairer society, with equal opportunity for all.
“Where Do We Go From Here” was essentially the same question asked a year later by the Kerner Commission, which in February 1968 issued a report examining the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and provided recommendations for the future.
The Report berated federal, state, and local governments for failed housing, education and social-service policies.

The report also aimed some of its sharpest criticism at the media, acknowledging that "[T]he press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men's eyes and white perspective." The report also noted "What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget — is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it."

The report's most famous passage warned, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”
The report’s recommendations included creating new jobs, constructing new housing, and putting an end to de facto segregation in order to wipeout the destructive ghetto environment.

And the creation of government programs to provide needed services, to hire more diverse and sensitive police forces and, most notably, to invest billions in housing programs aimed at breaking up residential segregation.

Dr. King called the report a "physician's warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life." Indeed, the report echoed the framework Dr. King laid out in 1967.

But nobody listened.

To the contrary, the backlash to the Report and the civil rights gains of the 1950s and 1960s was immediate, culminating the murders of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy and the racially exploitative “Southern Strategy” that elected Richard Nixon in 1968.

This backlash was reminiscent of the Jim Crow laws enacted at the turn of the 20th Century that struck at the social, economic, and political gains former slaves made during Reconstruction.

Over the past few years we’ve seen other backlashes to the gains made by African Americans, women, and other historically marginalized groups:

The election of Barack Obama as President gave rise to birtherism and the re-emergence of white supremacy, as seen at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and unfortunately the January 6th Insurrection.

And now we see it in response to generational changes made in the wake of the long overdue reckoning with 400 years of the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow in the wake of the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd.

But the impacts of slavery and Jim Crow did not go away with a magic wand when laws changed. They need action.

We have made great strides, but still have a long way to go to achieve the ideals upon which this country was founded for everyone.

Since 1968, we have seen more diversity among our elected and appointed government officials, in our educational institutions, and in the private sector, from Hollywood to the C-Suite.

And yet, disparities persist in education, health, wealth, homeownership, incarceration, and even school discipline.
We live in a Commonwealth where students of color and with disabilities are disproportionately referred to law enforcement.

We live in a Commonwealth where pregnant Black and brown women are 3 times as likely to die as a result of pregnancy and childbirth as white women.

We live in a Commonwealth where too often missing a rent payment can all too easily lead down a path to eviction and homelessness, and a disproportionate number of these evictions hit Black and Brown Virginians.

We live in a Commonwealth where people of color are disproportionately represented as criminal defendants, social services recipients, children in foster care, but under-represented as judges, lawyers, caseworkers, teachers, principals, etc.

And against this backdrop, the question of where we go from here poses a new challenge, as we grapple with current events, tied to deep-seated historical injustices that have pushed us to breaking points: the wounds of the long patterns of racial violence and brutality, opened anew by the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd; the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; a worsening climate crisis; an increasingly divided political landscape.

This year, the question, "Where do we go from here?" remains a difficult one.

In the wake of the turmoil and protests of 2020, the nation was re-awakened to what Dr. King called "the fierce urgency of now." Dr. King wrote, "We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time." Dr. King's call to immediate action was resonant at that time. We were hurt, and we were angry, but we were energized.

The past year has been a challenge, and our momentum requires all our effort to sustain. Much of the past year has been marked by fatigue, anxiety, and grief.

More than a year after the insurrection at the Capitol, our rifts have not been bridged.

We are entering a third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and hospitals remain overfilled, and medical workers are overstrained.
Teachers, Administrators and Parents are exhausted, but still anxious from the difficulties of keeping our children safe and learning in long-underfunded schools.

Families are grieving loved ones they've lost to the pandemic.
Where do we find the momentum to move forward, and the energy to ask, "where do we go from here," when at times it feels that we are barely treading water in the present?

We cannot let go of Dr. King's urgency, but at the same time, we can pause to look back at what we have accomplished. Because we have accomplished change, and we are better for it.

In Virginia, we increased the minimum wage and removed exemptions rooted in Jim Crow for jobs such as domestic workers, home healthcare workers, doormen and ushers - jobs that once were performed by enslaved workers and then were among the only paid jobs available to Black workers.

We went from the second hardest state in which to vote to the 12th easiest, and the first in the South to enact its own Voting Rights Act to eliminate voter discrimination, suppression and intimidation.
We have ended racially targeted arrests for possession of ma*****na.

We have abolished the death penalty.

In a visible symbol of progress, the Lee Monument in Richmond has been removed, no longer celebrating the ideals of the long-dead Confederacy in the Commonwealth.

And the statue of the architect of Massive Resistance and the Southern Manifesto has been removed from the entrance to Capitol Square.

This past year was a landmark for the King Commission, which completed and unveiled the Emancipation and Freedom Monument on Brown's Island, dedicated to the abolition of slavery, and the contributions of 10 African American Virginians in the centuries-long fight for freedom and equality.

The lives of the individuals featured on the Monument remind us that moments of historic progress -- like the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation and ratification of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States, and every momentous freedom we have gained since -- are built on the lives and dedicated work of individuals, whose combined efforts created a better world.

We can each, in our own way, do the same. As Dr. King described, "You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."
As I think of those individuals, I am reminded of the theme of the 2022 King Holiday as designated by the King Center in Atlanta - It starts with me: shifting priorities to achieve the beloved community.
This theme highlights that it is not just our institutions that have led the progress towards The Beloved Community. That progress has been shaped by individuals who are dedicated to making the reality of our country live up to the promise of its founding documents and the pledge that we began the session with today - liberty and justice for all. And people who understood that in a government by, of and for the people, people of different races, religions, creeds, and background, the perspectives and needs of all the people must be understood and addressed.

We all have a role to play to achieve the Beloved Community. So as we honor Dr. King today, I ask you each to reflect on what you will do to help achieve the Beloved Community.

And for those who are frustrated and exhausted by the slow progress we have made since Dr. King’s death, I remind you of his words that "Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."

We know that we have sacrificed, we have suffered, and we have struggled. Because of it we find ourselves now closer to justice, and in that movement toward justice, we can find hope, and the courage to continue to sacrifice, to suffer, and to struggle for a better world and a Beloved Community, as Dr. King did.

I am reminded, too, of another of Dr. King's directives: "If you can't fly, then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward." We have moved forward, but we have farther to go. Let’s keep moving together.

Madame President, I move that when the Senate adjourns today, it does so in memory and honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.