At Boston MLK breakfast, speakers decry dismantling of his legacy

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, tasked with delivering the keynote address at this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast in Boston, began by setting expectations. As ICE agents swarm Minneapolis, the Department of Education is taken apart and voting rights are on the chopping block, she found it hard to feel celebratory.

“I know we tend to want the keynote at a thing such as this to be inspirational. This will not be that sort of talk,” she said. “We gather at a time where we see the work that Dr. King fought and died for being dismantled at a rapid pace by the most openly white nationalist administration of my lifetime.”

Hundreds of community leaders, students and clergy gathered at the Westin Copley Place on Monday for the 56th annual MLK memorial breakfast. Each year, St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church and Union United Methodist Church organize the celebration in honor of the civil rights leader. It’s the country’s longest-running commemoration of King and takes place as the nation marks 250 years since its founding.

The theme of this year’s program was “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Revolutionary Love, Liberation and Joy.” The phrase is taken from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963.

While community leaders honored King’s legacy, the speeches often pivoted to today. The Trump administration and its actions were ever present. Speakers called Trump a threat to civil rights, diversity and democracy.

“The hard-fought, hard-won gains of the civil rights movement and so many — generation after generation — are under attack,” Gov. Maura Healey said.

Healey criticized the administration’s proposed cuts to health care, SNAP benefits and research grants. She also denounced the removal of images of people of color from federal websites.

“People in positions of power, the highest positions in the land [are] continuing to engage in abuse of power,” Healey said. “Abuse of power and worse — calculated cruelty.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu turned the conversation local.

“I am not going to talk about you-know-who,” Wu said, referring to Trump. “Not because there’s nothing to say about that bully, but because you already know what I would say.”

Instead Wu said she wanted to focus on issues within her control. She lamented last week’s state Senate rejection of her latest tax-shift proposal and criticized how much power the state government has over local decisions.

“We live in a system in Massachusetts where cities all across the commonwealth have to go begging to the state to make basic decisions about the health, welfare, prosperity and wellbeing of their communities,” Wu said. “We cannot let our commonwealth lean more on the lobbying of the chamber of commerce than the conscience of our community.”

Wu also invoked King’s legacy to urge unity and resilience.

“He insisted that we are not truly free until we push beyond mere resistance,” Wu said. “He called us toward creation. He called us to move forward with the brave work of building the beloved community.”

Amid that work, Rep. Ayanna Pressley said that King’s legacy gives her peace.

“In the midst of this anti-Blackness on steroids, attacks on Black people, Black bodies, Black votes, Black history, Black power and progress, what calms me is knowing that somebody already wrote the blueprint for our survival,” she said.

Pressley presented awards and scholarships to high school students at Boston public high schools who exemplify qualities embodied by King, such as service and justice.

From the podium, Hannah-Jones looked out at the gathered leaders of color and reflected on slavery, reconstruction and King’s life’s work.

“This room is not the vision of our founders,” Hannah-Jones said. “This room is a rejection of the vision of our founders.”

She said the nation has failed to learn from its history and so now it’s repeating its mistakes. Hannah-Jones ended her speech with a call for courage and action in response to the administration.

“We are going to have to answer to our children, to our grandchildren, when they ask, ‘What did you do?’ ” Hannah-Jones said. “I know what history is going to say about me. But what is history going to say about you?”