Mat-Su gathers to remember lessons of Martin Luther King Jr.

WASILLA — Today, Bernice Robinson is a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retired from a career as an educator. While a lifetime has passed in the more than five decades since she met Martin Luther King Jr., the lessons the civil rights leader taught are still fresh in her mind.

“I’m a product of what Martin Luther King stood for,” said Robinson, an associate minister at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Palmer, at Monday’s 11th annual Mat-Su Martin Luther King Jr. holiday celebration. “You see, I was a little mischievous girl who decided she wanted to taste the ‘White’ water and the ‘Colored’ water. I was the mischievous girl who wanted to find out what was the difference between the two bathrooms.”

Robinson was 17 when she met King and said she was impressed by his organization and insistence upon following the rules of bringing about social change in a nonviolent way. To that end, she described an incident with a group of classmates after graduation that went into a restaurant for a meal.

“We went in and we sat and we were quiet,” she said. “And we waited. And we waited. And we waited.”

Today, Robinson said she looks back at more than 50 years of progress in working toward equality and acceptance.

“When I was in school, my teachers all looked like me, my fellow students all looked like me,” she said. “But to be able to have completed a 35-year career in a classroom of diversity, what joy that was.”

Organized by the Mat-Su Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation, Monday’s celebration at Valley Performing Arts in Wasilla featured a host of community leaders and inspiring messages.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski staffer Gerri Sumpter read statements from the senator, outlining how appropriate it is to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the year that also marks the 50th anniversary of his famous Aug. 28, 1963, “I Have a Dream” speech.

“As our nation honors the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., let us remember the fortitude and resolve Dr. King had toward achieving that dream for his four little children and for generations of Americans to come,” Sumpter read.

Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss read a proclamation proclaiming Monday as Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the borough and said he “really appreciates what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for.”

He said that while there has been much progress toward achieving equality, the United States isn’t there yet.

“At that time (in the 1960s), we all anticipated that the black community would, in our lifetimes, probably outnumber the white population in the United States,” DeVilbiss said. “And I truly think that if it hadn’t have been for Roe vs. Wade, that would still be true. There are lessons to be learned there and proof that we still have progress to make when it comes to equal rights in our nation.”

Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson described King as “a great warrior and a man with far-reaching ideas, so I feel inadequate to speak at any event that bears his name.”

Echoing the theme of this year’s MLK Day celebration, “A Spirit of Community, United We Stand,” Johnson pointed out the differences between having a dream and living it.

“Living the dream and ‘I Have a Dream’ are two very different (things),” she said. “What dream are you living?”

Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright talked about an experience he had as a young man who had just returned from serving in Vietnam. He worked for a cab company in the Boston area and received a call to pick up a fare during a racially charged time.

He was working the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift and picked up a man at the General Electric plant, Rupright said.

“I went over to the dispensary because I had to pick up a fare,” he said. “A young fellow came out and his hand was all bandaged up and he asked me to take him over to Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury, Mass., and it was night. This was not a very good era in Boston’s history.”

Rupright continued that a traffic jam diverted them off the expressway and into a predominantly Irish neighborhood.

“Needless to say, my fare was a little concerned for his own safety,” he said. “I certainly was feeling anxious for him and for myself.”

While they navigated the roads to the fare’s neighborhood, Rupright said they talked. He learned that they were both soldiers and both served in Vietnam.

“As we made our way through the back streets of the city, we talked,” he said. “That was an understanding between two people. Even though we didn’t serve together in Vietnam, we had shared experiences.”

Martin Luther King Jr. was only 39 years old when he was killed, but his legacy is much greater than the sum of his years, said Theresa Lyons, executive director for Academic and Multicultural Student Services for University of Alaska Anchorage.

“I choose to live in a place of hope,” she said, adding that King “didn’t always think he would necessarily get to see this (progress) by being physically here. But he believed it for us, and because he had faith in what he spoke about and what he preached about, I get to stand before you today.

“I am an African-American citizen in a nation (where) my ancestors were entrapped, bonded slaves brought from the continent of Africa. And I live in a country where my people were marginalized, not considered humans, where education was denied us. … But I stand as an American today, and I do that on the backs of those who saw far enough into the future and hoped enough about what today would look like for me. The fight continues to keep the dream alive.”

Contact reporter Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.

What: Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation Mardi Gras Dance, a fundraiser for the group’s scholarship fund. Includes food, fun and dancing. Wear a costume, mask, boots, hats or whatever sparks your fancy.

When: 6:30 p.m., Feb. 9.

Where: Settler’s Bay Lodge, Mile 8, Knik-Goose Bay Road.

Cost: $25.

Tickets: Call 376-1566 or 232-5201.