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07035 January 17, 2007
Martin Luther King's legacy celebrated at the Presbyterian Center
'Regular people' are key to justice, equality, civil rights activist says
by Toya Richards Hill
LOUISVILLE - In this time when America reflects on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, it's important to remember that change occurred through the work of plain, ordinary people, said civil rights activist Judy Richardson.
"Regular people did the Movement," said Richardson, who cut her teeth in civil rights as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). "Ordinary folks like us can do extraordinary things."
Richardson's comments came Jan. 10 at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) Center here as part of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. PC(USA) national staff and local community members gathered to worship and remember under the theme "Justice, Hope, Love: Youth, Young Adults and the Civil Rights Movement."
Richardson talked energetically about her days as a young SNCC staff member, the inspiring adults from whom she learned, and how some of the issues they faced then are still present today.
SNCC was "a leadership development training ground," said Richardson, who grew up in Tarrytown, NY, at a time when no Black people held political or economic power there. Within SNCC, she added, "I found the best and the brightest."
"I thought I had died and gone to heaven," she said.
Notables like John Lewis, now a U.S. Representative from Georgia; Julian Bond, current chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and Bernice Reagan, a SNCC freedom singer and founder of the a cappella women's singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock; helped shape how Richardson saw herself and the world.
"We were people who understood that you had a certain path in life," she said. And though often you were fueled by anger, SNCC provided a constructive, organized way to deal with it, said Richardson, who worked on SNCC projects throughout the South.
"We were a community," using a "well-organized, tactical movement" of non-violent resistance, she said.
Richardson, who went on to become the series associate producer of the 14-hour, award-winning PBS series "Eyes on the Prize," said along with civil rights, SNCC's work and the Movement also were about economic justice.
A "radical redistribution of economic power" is what King was talking about in many of his last speeches, Richardson said. And it remains a key issue today, she said.
Multi-million-dollar severance packages and bonuses for high-level corporate executives, as well as tax cuts that favor the country's wealthiest, are just some examples of a current system that needs to be changed, said Richardson, a senior producer with Northern Light Productions/Boston.
In addition, the cost of the war in Iraq is estimated at $8 billion a month, she said.
In the midst of it all, Richardson told the group, change through regular, everyday people can happen.
"We are responsible for everybody," she said, referencing the recent story of Wesley Autrey, who jumped onto New York City subway tracks and used his own body to shield a man from an oncoming train.
"We really do have the power to change things," Richardson said.
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