Published Jan. 19, 2010
By Kristi Pihl, Tri-City Herald staff writer
VIDEO: 19th Annual Bell-Ringing Ceremony
VIDEO: On the street at the 19th Annual Bell-Ringing Ceremony
Photo Gallery: MLK Bell-Ringing 2010
PASCO — The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was marked Monday in the Tri-Cities with reminders that much more needs to be done to bring civil rights to all.
After little golden bells rang across the still Columbia Basin College campus, brothers Corey, 9, and Marcell Brown, 10, of Pasco, placed two colorful bouquets of flowers at the foot of the King statue on the campus. King is depicted standing with his left hand on the shoulder of a boy who could be Corey or Marcell’s age.
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| Bobby Sparks of Kennewick shows a bell to his great-nephew Corey Brown, 9, of Pasco, on Monday during the 19th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. bell-ringing ceremony at Columbia Basin College. Sparks brings a bell each year from the collection of his late mother, Annie Sparks. About 20 of Annie’s descendants were among the roughly 400 at the ceremony. Corey and his brother Marcell performed the flower presentation. Photo by Kai-Huei of the Tri-City Herald |
About 400 people attended the 19th annual bell-ringing ceremony in remembrance of King.
Kimberly Camp, Hanford Reach Interpretive Center CEO and the event’s keynote speaker, said for her, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a day to roll up the sleeves, put on jeans and volunteer in the community.
It wasn’t until 1994 — 26 years after King’s death — that he was recognized with a national holiday, she said. King and many others fought the racism that literally was killing black people, but more needs to be done, Camp said.
Camp said, “Civil rights are different than constitutional rights.” The Constitution might give citizens rights, but that doesn’t mean they are followed, whether due to racism or sexism, she said.
“There have been accomplishments, but the work is not done,” she said.
David Arnold, CBC associate professor of intercultural studies, reminded the crowd that every time the U.S. has crossed a racial barrier there has been more work to do. When slavery was abolished in 1865 with the 13th Amendment, abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass recognized that the movement’s work was just beginning.
And even after the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments in 1866 and 1870, which provided for equal protection under the law and voting rights for men of color, Jim Crow laws were passed in Southern states that enacted segregation in schools and other public places, he said.
Rufus M. Friday, Tri-City Herald publisher, was recognized for his accomplishments with the 2010 Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Award.
CBC President Richard Cummins said Friday has used the Herald’s editorial pages as a true community forum, and has taken on issues important to the community regardless of their popularity.
Friday credited God, his parents, his wife and daughter and the Herald staff after receiving the award.
One of King’s legacies is that of dreaming big, Friday said, and it’s something his parents taught him.
He also asked those present to remember that the best exercise they could get was to bend over and lift up someone else.
Manny Hunt, 16, a Kamiakin High School student attending the event, said although racism may never be completely gone, people can strive to extinguish it.
The election of President Obama was a sign of change, he said. But there still are many things that need to be changed, he said.
“It doesn’t matter what color you are if you have the same content in your heart,” Hunt said.
Vanis Daniels of Pasco, who also attended the ceremony, said the U.S. justice system is one of those things that still needs change. The justice system lacks consistency, he said, and the weight given to certain crimes, such as drug-related ones, is unbalanced.
The courts need to remember that they work for the people and not the other way around, Daniels said.
Daniels grew up in the Tri-Cities, and said he remembers as a child, before the blue bridge was finished in 1954, how a Kennewick police officer would be stationed at the old green bridge between Pasco to Kennewick to send back any black people as the sun set.
“It’s just good to see the progress that has come about,” Daniels said.
Camp encouraged people to question the rhetoric they hear and to form their own opinions. It’s up to individual citizens whether the nation lives up to King’s expectations, she said.
“We are all in this together,” she said.
Additional news stories can be accessed online at the Tri-City Herald.