On Monday, January 19, more than one hundred thirty people gathered on a bright snowy morning at Congregation Beth Elohim (CBE) in Acton for the 24th annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast to honor the memory of Dr. King. Twenty or thirty more audience members watched on Zoom.
The crowd was welcomed by Sarah Coletti, the chair of CBE’s social justice arm, Na’aseh, and by CBE Rabbi Braham David. (Na’aseh means “We will act” in Hebrew.) Ms. Coletti recognized the work of Sal Lopes and the No Place for Hate committee in starting the Acton breakfast to honor Dr. King 24 years ago.
Rabbi David reported that he had just returned from a trip to Israel where he had participated in face-to-face dialogue efforts across differences within Israel. Ms. Coletti acknowledged a number of elected officials in attendance: State Senator Jamie Eldridge, State Representative Dan Sena, and Acton Select Board Members David Martin, Jim Snyder-Grant, and Alissa Nicol. Several members of the Acton Police and the Boxborough Police, and some candidates for local office, were in attendance and acknowledged as well.
Ms. Coletti then introduced the keynote speaker for the event, William Harlan Dickerson II. Dickerson serves as co-executive director of the Massachusetts Community Action Network, a coalition of faith-based community organizing groups working for economic and social justice. Mr. Dickerson is known as “Brother Will” and has been working as a community organizer for over fourteen years. Brother Will began his remarks with a song including the lyric, “Over my head, I hear freedom in the air.”
Brother Will described his personal journey from his childhood as part of a Black, upper middle-class family in a suburban community in Colorado to organizing faith communities for police accountability in Denver in the wake of the death of Michael Brown in 2014.
Brother Will told the audience that we must acknowledge how much work has been done to undo the legacy of Dr. King. He drew an analogy between the challenges faced by Dr. King and the civil rights movement and the challenges we face today.
He continued, “We are in a moment of despair watching as our sisters and brothers are stripped of their dignity, but we remember that disappointment is finite, but hope is infinite.” He argued that we must “grow hope,” building the bonds with each other.
Brother Will described how the Massachusetts Community Action Network (MCAN) and allied organizations and churches were seeking action from Governor Healey to protect immigrants and people of color in Massachusetts from violence and deportation by ICE (U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement) and other federal agencies.
MCAN and allied organizations are also calling for the creation of a Massachusetts Truth Commission to ensure that ICE and others are held accountable for actions that are unconstitutional and illegal. These calls to action were to be presented to Governor Healey on Friday, January 23.
Bob Van Meter is a longtime resident of Acton who has spent his career in affordable housing and community development.
