May God bless you all. May God bless Great Falls.

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Georgia Newman
5 years ago
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1 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you to Reverend Caldwell and the leaders and congregation of the Mount Olive Christian Fellowship for welcoming us as your guests for this very special celebration. Choir absolutely amazing. Thank you for igniting our brains and emotions. Native American Dancers and Drummers thank you for reminding us of your history and your legacy on these Great Plains And Reverend Caldwell I can t thank you enough for your kind introduction. I have enjoyed getting to know you at our Friday breakfasts. Thank you for the love you share with all of God s people. I can t tell you how much I enjoy being the superintendent of your public schools. It is my honor to serve our kids, our community and our future in every way that I can. It is also an honor to be here to commemorate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King s vast importance to the history of our country and to the evolution of our nation s collective conscience causes us to pause on this special day to celebrate him. Thank you for being here. We are here today to commemorate the life and legacy of a man who changed this country for the better; a man who, in the face of great adversity, taught our nation that we had yet to live up to the true meaning of the very principles on which our country was founded; a man who demonstrated for the world the great power of peaceful protest. A man that loved and believed and served. As I prepared my words for today, I must tell you how inadequate I felt trying to corral my thoughts and emotions. As a white, and privileged woman who grew up in a white and privileged place right here in Great Falls, Montana, I have questioned more than once why I should have any credibility standing before you? More than once, I have silently cursed my good friend Reverend Caldwell for challenging me to do this. More than once I have asked what could I possibly say that could make a difference? As I contemplated this important task, a wave of peace came over me. Thank you, God, for that. That peace allowed me to realize that I do have some things to say. That I, like Dr. King, have emotion and passion and concern. I like King believe in the principles our country was founded on: those truths we hold to be self-evident that all men are created equal and are endowed by our Creator with those certain unalienable rights, of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I believe, like that which is etched in King s memorial in Washington DC, that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final work in reality. And that I like King believe in the common good, faith in fellow man, the need to fight for civil rights, and that justice, democracy and human kindness CAN prevail over cruelty and prejudice. I believe these things to my very core. And so, as I share my thoughts with you this evening, I pray that our hearts and minds are open to his legacy. I pray that my simple words and thoughts will inspire you this evening. I pray that by the very fact that we are here together, in this place and in this way, we can leave here in an hour or so, to do good things. Speaking of doing good things, Martin Luther King Jr. was the epitome of a committed and accomplished leader. Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, he was no stranger to the grave injustices and unspeakable hardships that were typical of African-American life in the United States at that time. Targets of extreme discrimination, Dr. King and millions of others, were not only denied equality, true citizenship, and many basic rights, they often were victims of horrific acts of violence, and were forced to live under conditions that no man, woman or child should ever have to endure.

2 Defying those odds, Dr. King sprang into action at a very early age, beginning a journey that would not only change his life but the lives of countless others. After attending segregated public schools, skipping two grades during high school and enrolling in Morehouse College at the age of 15, he graduated and went on to Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania and then Boston University, completing his doctoral dissertation all by the age of 25. A devout clergyman and activist who encouraged nonviolent civil disobedience, Dr. King grew into the Civil Rights leader who inspired his people and the nation, to take action, and his many great accomplishments changed the landscape of our society. The youngest person in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King was assassinated in 1968 at the too young age of 39. Yes, Dr. King knew about urgency; about the importance of taking immediate action. He had his finger on the pulse of history, and throughout his life, he knew that NOW was the time to act. So much has changed, and yet, so much hasn t. As President Obama pointed out last week in his farewell address in Chicago, Race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society. He pointed out that in his lifetime he has seen that race relations are better than they were ten, or twenty, or thirty years ago, but he also made it clear that we re not where we need to be. President Obama knows that we aren t even close to a postracial America. Our country s leaders and citizens know we have so much more work to do ensure unconditional love for one another, decency for each, prosperity for all, and true freedom for our nation. So what are we to do? We look to Dr. King and his teachings. We turn to his words in 1967 when he told us about "The Fierce Urgency of Now!" Dr. King said, in 1967: "We are now faced with the fact, my friends, 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. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, too late. I can t let myself believe it s too late. I have to believe in the urgency of now. So what is today s now? We have expanded the concept of civil rights to beyond that of race. It is now one of ethnicity. It is now one of gender. It is now one of love and marriage. It is now one of creed and religion. Civil rights is now about a plethora of characteristics that differentiate us, and unfortunately divide us. When Martin Luther King Jr. and the members of the Civil Rights Movement motivated our people by the urgency of now, little did we know that the same concept would repeat itself over and over today, in ways that we could not have imagined back then. That walls and divisions would dissipate while at the same time endure. Despite our progress, if Dr. King were here today, he would remind us, just as President Obama did last week, that there s still much work to be done. He would urge us to work harder to ease discord and to fight injustice in our communities. And he would lead us to bring an end to the culture of violence tearing communities apart across not just our nation, but our globe. And he would urge us to not procrastinate, to not hope someone else will solve our problems, to not bury our heads in the sand. He would demand that we take action. So we must ask ourselves today, right now, what action should we take? Where can we reject despair and turn to hope? How can we make Dr. King s calls for justice, equality and opportunity be a reality for all our people? In my mind, there is one thing that has great potential to do all that and more, and that s the institution of public education. That s right, public education is an entity that has the horsepower to make a difference. Public

3 education is a synonym for hope. Only by educating our citizens can there be any hope to face our nation s challenges to ensure civil rights for us all. I venture to guess that every single person in this room has attended school and that you hold specific paradigms as to what education is. I want to make it clear, education isn t just about teaching lessons, correcting papers and reporting out grades. Education isn t about school buildings, course catalogs, and class schedules. Education is about something so much bigger and so much more important. Education is about wanting to make tomorrow better. Education is a game changer, a door-opener. Education levels the playing field for all. Education makes things possible. Education is hope not just for the individual student, but also for society as a whole. Education ensures democracy. Thomas Jefferson, an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States, said that public education would be the foundation for democracy and that public education was essential to a democratic nation. He said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be...the people cannot be safe without information. In order for our people to be truly free and for our country to be all it was promised to be, citizens must be educated. In order to not only reinforce the Declaration of Independence promise that all men are created equal, but to ensure that all boys and girls, rich or poor; white, black or brown; urban, rural or suburban; well parented or not; you name the circumstance, that they have equal opportunity. Public education exposes students to people that are different. Education allows students to hear about and gain an understanding of varying points of view and dissimilar facts of life. Education is about horizons beyond our locales. Education is about walking in someone else s shoes so that you can empathize and understand various circumstances of the human condition. Education is about learning to navigate the plethora of information coming at us from all directions. Education is about learning to be able to evaluate the written and oral opinions of others, the photo-shopped images, the pieced together sound bytes, the fake news. It s about developing skills to distinguish the reasonable from the sensational, the serious from the simplistic, the logical from the silly. It s about a people being able to think freely but critically about what they see, hear and read. That s what will keep our democracy operating. That s what will ensure that civil rights are assured and protected. Without public education, Jefferson s fear that our democracy would flounder would be realized. His worst fears would come true because ignorants lack the knowledge to commit to the ideals of democracy; they lack the ability to do the work of democracy and they don t have the skills to lead in a democracy. A society of ignorants puts democracy at risk and therefore then too is freedom and respect. By the way, public education today takes care of our youngest citizens in ways that weren t even contemplated by Martin Luther King and his contemporaries in the 1960 s. Today, many of our students are homeless, hungry, abused, suicidal, addicted and discouraged. These same students look to their schools and their teachers to provide the basics: clothes, food, school supplies, counseling, and way too often, they look to their school and teachers for consistency, understanding, compassion and love. And our committed, faithful, and inspired teachers give it to them. They give them comfort and care, so the students can feel safe, and when kids feel safe, they can and will learn. I am here standing up for public education because it is under attack. The widespread message that public schools are failing is a myth. More students are graduating than ever before. More students overcome bigger challenges to succeed than ever before. Kids today know so much more upon graduation than any of us in this room did when we received our diplomas. Failing, are you kidding me? Our schools are working miracles. Education is the game changer, the door-opener, the citizen maker. If public education goes away, so does the public in terms of freedom and respect. Public education is essential not only because it serves the public, but because it creates the public and establishes us as a public that is grounded in the ideals of democracy.

4 And so, every day as I go to work as the superintendent of your schools, I work to further these important goals and to enhance destiny that we continue to graduate students that are not only career and college ready, but most importantly citizenship ready. ALL kids deserve access to schools that meet their needs to make sure they can become contributing members of our society. Unfortunately however, I think there are some that want to see public education fail. One group that seeks to dilute public education does so because they actually know that without quality public education the divide between the educated and uneducated that clearly corresponds with the divide between the rich and the poor, gets widened. They understand that this magnifies the power of the educated, the powerlessness of the uneducated. They actually seek for us to become a nation governed by the wealthy: A plutocracy, not a democracy. An education system that does not provide equal educational opportunity for all, ushers us down that path. It also ushers us down a path that takes us backward in time, to perhaps the kind of time Martin Luther King Jr. stood against. Some want to take public schools to the brink of failure so they can rescue them by inserting charter schools or school of choice that will provide competition to public schools under the premise that competition will make us better. As if we weren t already committed to doing great things. In reality, that inserted competition will sort children into winners and losers. The winners get the whole package: college, career and citizenship readiness. The losers are taught only the skills needed for work and as a result are ill-equipped to understand or participate in civic and political life. Another slippery slope to plutocracy and to the violations of the very civil rights the man we are honoring today fought so hard for. Others want public education to fail so that public dollars can be diverted to private schools. That may sound ok on the surface, we have private schools in our community that I highly respect, but private schools can limit, by law, the curriculum they teach to the ideologies they espouse those specific tenants to which they hold tight. These could be any political, social, philosophical, or religious idea for which public dollars are paid to perpetuate. What if those ideologies specifically run contrary to the very basics of democracy? Those basic tenants of freedom, equality and respect? Once the door is opened for public dollars to fund specific ideologies, our democracy is at risk. My last hypothesis is that this is happening because as a people, our hope is waning. We live for the here and now, for instant gratification, for the moment. Some of us only concentrate on amassing our own personal wealth with the rest of the world be damned. That makes it hard to take money out of our pocket to put into the educational system that serves children that are not your own. Some of us live lives that are difficult and full of despair. Dealing with a tough life robs people of the energy to contribute to and defend the one thing that could alleviate that despair education. Some of us live lives that are of single purpose without a thought of the greater good. These are hopeless situations to be in and if education and hope are synonymous, and hope is waning respect for education wanes too. Each day I ask myself how we can turn this around. How can we have abundant love for our children, abundant faith in a system that works, and abundant resources to provide the opportunity for hope that public education provides? How can we begin to understand that the urgency is now? That tomorrow is upon us; that we must act before it s too late? Today, Martin Luther King Day, is a perfect day to start. It s a perfect day to reject despair and turn to hope. It s a perfect day to bolster our most important institutions of course schools, but also our communities, our families, our associations, our governments, our tribes.

5 It s a perfect day to spread hope by supporting your schools by talking to elected officials about providing the resources so schools can do all the work that must be done to ensure justice, equality and opportunity. It s a perfect day to pay attention to the Montana Legislature meeting as we speak in Helena. To hold them accountable to the ideals Martin Luther King asked us to perpetuate. It s a perfect day to reach out to families that are barely keeping their heads above water to make ends meet. It s a perfect day to create economic opportunities so our citizens can be productive and compensated. It s a perfect day to reach out to our Native American, our African American, our Asian American, our Christian American, our Muslim American, our Jewish American, really to reach out to ALL our American brothers and sisters. To shake their hands, to look them in the eye, to say, I see you and I honor you. It s a perfect day to reach across the aisle to those of another political party. As President Obama said, It s time to start with the premise that each of our fellow citizens loves this country just as much as we do; that they value hard work and family like we do; that their children are just as curious and hopeful and worthy of love as our own. It s a perfect day to recognize those among us who have taken up the cause, like our City Commissioners that just passed a resolution to denounce hate, bigotry, and intolerance, which masquerades as white nationalism. That citizens joined them to express solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the ongoing struggle to free the world of the ideas and conduct that serve to undermine a free and virtuous society. It s a perfect day, as pointed out by Dr. King s widow, to ensure that this holiday is substantive as well as symbolic. She said, It must be more than a day of celebration. Let his holiday be a day of reflection, a day of teaching nonviolent philosophy and strategy, a day of getting involved in nonviolent action for social and economic progress. So act we must. Join me in committing ourselves to unity, compassion, and service to our fellow citizens. Join me in ushering in a new era of hope and friendship among Americans for future generations to enjoy. It s a perfect day, as King said on April 18, 1959 in Washington DC, to Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of our country, and a finer world to live in. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight to honor this great man that gave us so much. As he asked of us: May our loyalty to mankind, coupled with unarmed truth and unconditional love, have the final word in reality. May God bless you all. May God bless Great Falls.

Walt Gable Comments on Martin Luther King Day January 19, 2009

Walt Gable Comments on Martin Luther King Day January 19, 2009 History is indeed made up of significant events which shape our future and outstanding leaders who influence our destiny. The Reverend Martin