Jawaun's Youth Program Ideas

LOD LIST

- Boat trips

- Science center trips

- Starting a charity

- Picnics on Belle Isle

- Fund raisers 1_0(‘ 0,)135\i\ )6c

- Recycling Groups

- After school tutoring

- Zoo Trips

- Camping Trips

- Starting year traditions

- Making youth group clothing

Beginning List of potential new products and services for Store

New Services

Events in the Community Room

New areas of Property Management, as we have been discussing (potential problems, facilitation in solving these)

Thursday, Trader Joe’s days

New Made in Michigan Food Products:

Ice Cream: Moo Town Creamery (from Eastern Market) Thomas Organic Creamery

Snacks: Better Made, Mrs. Peacocks Confectionary (Brittle), Good People Popcorn (bacon cheddar, sweet n’ salty) Stahl’s “Belly Button”Cookies (chocolate and walnut praline) Garden Fresh Gourmet (guacamole, salsa, tortilla chips) Zingerman’s candy bars

Food & Condiments: Charley’s Ballpark Mustard, Herkner’s Old Fashioned Cherry Goodness (Ice Cream topping, glaze, or marinade) Jessica’s Granola, Sander’s Hot Fudge, Koegel Deli Meat’s , Fresh Fruits Eastern Market, Avalon Bread

Prepared Food: Sandwiches/Wraps (Veggie, Turkey – made with MI products), Pre-made Smoothies and Juices, Breakfast Healthy Muffins (Banana Flax, Blueberry Bran) Large homemade cookies (healthy, with all natural ingredients, agave instead of sugar etc.) Trail Mix, Protein Bars (made with Jessica’s Granola etc.)

Drinks: Faygo (explore new original flavors – Ohana, Peach) Grandad’s Sweet Tea, Calder Dairy and Farms (see if organic) – milk, butter,

Household Items:

Green Forest (Paper Towels etc) Caldrea & Mrs. Meyers cleaning supplies (http://www.thenibble.com/zone/scents/household/spring-cleaning.asp)

Clothes & Accessories:

Vintage rare Jewelry, T-Shirts (Belle Isle, Building, Greening, students help design)

Gift and Beauty Products:

Union Street Soaps (Toasted Coconut, Cherry Tree, Essentials Sampler) Violet Essentials lotions, Art – (shop at Rust Belt and pick some artists to feature) – House Plants, Fresh Flowers,

Rev. Charles Williams II of King Solomon Baptist Church makes historic journey marking MLK Memorial event

August 23, 2011 http://detnews.com/article/20110823/METRO/108230379 King memorial draws Detroiters to D.C. ORALANDAR BRAND-WILLIAMS / The Detroit News Detroit — Dorothy Jackson is old enough to have experienced the pains of prejudice when parts of America were racially segregated. She also remembers how one man — the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — helped knock down those walls. "It lifted our spirits to know someone was trying to do something," said Jackson, 87, a retired Detroit nurse who couldn't go to nursing school in her hometown of Aliquippa, Pa., because it didn't admit African-Americans. "We had a lot of faith in him." Like hundreds of others from Metro Detroit, Jackson will ride a bus for 26 hours, round-trip, for festivities leading to Sunday's dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. About 250,000 are expected to attend the events. "I'm so excited, excited, excited," said Jackson, who has donated to museums dedicated to King's legacy. Detroiters have felt a special kinship with King, in part because of his deep ties to the city. The memorial's dedication marks the 48th anniversary of King's seminal "I Have a Dream" address at the Lincoln Memorial — a version of a speech he had delivered just weeks before at a march in Detroit. Officials at Historic King Solomon Baptist Church on the city's west side are chartering four buses to take 200 people to Washington on Friday. They'll wear red T-shirts featuring King's name and the question: "Got Jobs?" That's a reference to a Saturday march for "Jobs and Justice" that is part of five days of events leading to the unveiling. "It's going to be a very monumental occasion," said the Rev. Charles Williams II, pastor of the King Solomon church and an organizer of the bus trip. "He's the only African-American with a monument on the Mall. … That monument represents justice." The buses from Detroit plan to leave on Saturday, but Williams said he's been assured by organizers that they will tour the monument. D'Alluntae Vaughn, 16, a junior at University of Detroit Jesuit High School, was selected for the trip by church organizers because of his good grades. "It will be a great experience to be around history," said Vaughn, a member of Boys Hope Girls Hope, a privately funded program that helps high-achieving youths with financial assistance and educational opportunities. "It's also a chance to commemorate a great man." The $120 million memorial is largely funded with private donations. Fourteen years in the making, the memorial is surrounded by those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and is the first on the mall for a nonpresident. Beset by building delays and a controversial decision to make the statue in China, the memorial opened to the public Monday. A formal dedication ceremony featuring President Barack Obama and other celebrities is scheduled for Sunday. "This is going to be epic," said Faith Jackson, an unemployed former retail manager from Detroit who plans to visit the memorial and participate in Saturday's march. "This is something that is going to be historic." Among the passengers traveling from Detroit will be the Rev. Horace Sheffield III, pastor of New Destiny Baptist Church on West Davison. Sheffield was 9 when he took part in 1963's March on Washington with his father, the late labor leader and activist Horace Sheffield Jr., a friend of King's. "Imagine that … the son of a poor sharecropper finds central placement in the nation's capital … it shows all people that people of low degree exalt," said Sheffield. "It talks about the human capital in the context of high unemployment (and) crime. It speaks to what is doesn't have to be." But Sheffield said King would likely have preferred a more humble honor. "He was a selfless man," Sheffield said of King. "He would have preferred the nameless poor African-Americans who marched on the Edmund Pettus Bridge (during the 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Ala.). The folks whose names we will never know." Janet Threatt, the director of the Boys Hope Girls Hope program that is sending five students on the trip, said she feels "part of history." "I'm old enough to know what this man represents, and I get to internalize a great feeling," Threatt said of King. The dedication of the monument and the march are "an opportunity for people to come together," Threatt added. "Nothing but good can come from it."

Is the survey ready to send out?

Dear Residents of Rivertown Lofts,

It has been nearly one year since the Light or Dark Convenience Store and Concierge Services opened our doors. Accordingly, we are planning a Celebration Event for October 29th so mark your calendars and stay tuned for more details.

The year has been filled with remarkable relationship building and learning focused on creating a more meaningful and connected experience for our residents at Rivertown Lofts. The information and feedback we have been able to gather through our many conversations is quietly bringing about a transformation with regards to our products and services. Thank you for sharing!

Light or Dark would like to further adapt our products and services to more closely reflect your needs and wishes as a resident and we can’t do that alone. In return for your precious time spent filling out this short survey, we promise to use this knowledge to create more meaningful life and work enhancing opportunities and experiences for you.

Store & Services

If we were able to offer freshly made healthy food from mostly Michigan products, such as sandwiches, smoothies, salads, muffins, cookies, would this be something that you would enjoy? Do you have any favorites from these categories that may inform our consideration as we develop these product offerings?

We would like to offer more green products to you. Are there any that you currently use or some that you would like to see in the store?

What are your favorite Michigan Products?

We would like to create a gift and specialty shop ambiance for our store that supports local Detroit artists and manufacturers as much as possible. Are there any local artists or crafters whose products you would like to see in our store?

Are you aware of all of the services that are offered through Light or Dark? Are there any areas of your life that you could use an extra hand with?

Events

Would you be interested in more events being held at the lofts? If you have ideas, or themes that you have experienced as fun in the past, let us know!

If we were to partner with local restaurants to serve meals and drinks on designated nights in the community room, is this a service you would use? What are your favorite local restaurants?

Incubator

We are proposing to facilitate the development of a social-networked incubator vehicle for our multi-talented residents at the Lofts to provide for seamless connections to one another, sharing of assets, ideas, skills and resources culminating in refined personal and professional services. Does this sound like something that you might like to participate in?

Do you have any skills or talents that you would be interested in sharing via mentoring of a young person, or projects that you might include them in (job shadowing)? If so, could you briefly explain what they are?

Do you work with or volunteer your time with any community organizations in the surrounding area? If so, what is their mission and what areas are they in need of partnered help with?

Loft Demand "Getting Hot" Submitted by Jim Ross

LOFT LIVING WHERE ALL THE ACTION IS

DEMAND IS GETTING HOT, ESPECIALLY IN DETROIT

By JUDY ROSE FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER

From her third-floor balcony in Willys Overland Lofts, Patricia Wren’s view is the downtown Detroit skyline. She rides her bike to Detroit Tigers games, to Hart Plaza for festivals and to Eastern Market for produce. When Wren and her partner Melissa Smiley are home, they share 2,000 wide-open square feet. That space is their living room, dining room, kitchen, office — everything but their two bedrooms and two baths. Says Wren, “It’s quite a spectacular place to live.”

Wren, 47, and Smiley, 34, are part of the loft boom in the core of Detroit and a few other “cool, 24/7 areas like Royal Oak,” to quote developer Andy Farbman. From vintage city buildings to flashy, from-scratch suburban construction, lofts have snagged a significant chunk of housing for younger, unfettered professionals.

And inside Detroit, city-boosters report a happy phenomenon: The great majority of people who move into a Detroit loft come from outside the city.

That’s the case with Wren and Smiley. Wren had owned her home in Ann Arbor for 16 years before she became director of the Health Science Department at Oakland University. The pair could have made the predictable buy, a house nearby in Rochester Hills.

Instead, urban life called them. “We walk to dinner, walk to the dry cleaner, walk to the bank,” Wren says. Both bicyclers, they reach farther destinations on their bikes.

After living on the west side of Ann Arbor, Wren says there’s a lot more to do and see in Detroit.

“There’s a festival every weekend, movies in the park. There’s a huge dodge ball tournament going on this weekend,” Wren says.

Tenants on cutting edge

Developers say folks who like lofts often like other innovations. On Garfield Street near Woodward, there’s a project called 71 Garfield. Zachary and Associates converted a vintage building into business space and lofts, warmed and cooled by sustainable energy.

The company drilled deep wells for geothermal heating, added solar water heaters as well as a water recovery system . “Utility costs are so low we don’t charge for utilities,” Ernest Zachary says.

In its first 100 days, 71 Garfield completely rented out, he says, crediting “the very knowledgeable tenant base that wants to live here.”

Zachary says about 70% of these tenants are newcomers to the city, and about 60% are from a creative field like architecture or design.

Now the company has brought the same super-efficient energy system to its conversion of the old Newberry Building, an 1895 nurses residence near Detroit Medical Center that will be ready to rent in September.

Heavy demand means short supply

In Detroit or in the suburbs, if you hunt for a loft, you’ll find 90% are rentals.

When low-down-payment mortgages crashed around 2007, they took the for-sale loft market with them. Back then, developers building lofts for sale found they had to rent them or fold.

Now both locally and nationally almost all new lofts are for rent, says Andy Farbman, president and CEO of the Farbman Group in Southfield.

But even for rent, he says, Detroit is close to running short of lofts. For the first time, his company’s Woodward Lofts in Midtown has a waiting list.

“With all the young work force coming downtown, you’d have to be blind to not see what’s happening.”

At The Loft Warehouse, owner/ broker Sabra Sanzotta handles both sales and rentals in areas like downtown, Midtown and Cork-town. The larger part of her business is rentals, she says, but she could sell more lofts if she had them.

“People moving into Detroit is a phenomenon,” Sanzotta says. “We really have to work hard to find individual condo owners who want to sell.” As with single-house sales, she says many loft sales are foreclosures or short sales.

The loft idea is so popular, many apartments now incorrectly call themselves “lofts.” Of true lofts for sale right now, the largest is Willys Overland Lofts on Canfield near Cass, where Wren and Smiley bought two smaller lofts and combined them into one. The complex only offers lofts for sale.

This 1918 building was a service center for Willys Overland autos. Willys built it four stories tall; the developer, DeMattia Group in Plymouth, added two floors of penthouses.

The structure was built strong enough for cars to drive on interior floors, so it can support two more floors, says DeMattia President Gary Roberts.

“You can have a tap dancer over your head, and you won’t hear anything.”

Ramps that funneled Willys cars into the building now lead to two floors of indoor parking, a luxury downtown.

The Willys has 75 lofts from 1,100 square feet at $140,000 to the best view penthouse, with balconies on two sides, for $640,000.

MetLife offers mortgages there with 20% down, says Austin Black II, broker/owner at City Living Detroit, which handles Willys’ sales. “But we are very close to getting approval for FHA loans,” he says, which would make down payments as low as 3.5%.

After that, it’ll be easy, Black says. “This neighborhood sells itself.”

Willys Overland Lofts building overlooks an active neighborhood in Detroit’s Midtown.

Photos by JESSICA J. TREVINO/Detroit Free Press

Patricia Wren, 47, moved to the Willys in Midtown Detroit in December with her partner, Melissa Smiley, 34.

ABOVE: The open kitchen has a painting by Detroit artist Cedric Tai.

AGENDA: Today's Meeting Wednesday, August 24, 2011 10:00AM

Hello Everyone,

Here is a rough outline of what we will try to tackle this Wednesday 8/24 at 10 am at Rivertown. See you there!

Property Management

- Discuss corporate rentals, new strategies as this is the immediate revenue stream generator that will allow the transition to go more smoothly

Oct 29th Event:

 - Visualization of Event, What does the Interactivity of the Event look like - how do we communicate what is new by demonstration  (Products, Services, Youth Program, Incubator, Community Room Events)

- Consider partnerships and sponsors, specifics of how to approach - also, residents that may be contributing time and food (Dahlia (to develop products for store, gourment dog treats etc.), Theresa (gourmet caterer, would donate time to preparing food so to market her business), Felicia (volunteer, will do running or any grunt work, needs lots of tasks)

- Survey - is it ready to go? Event Flyer, work on concept/design - to promote event, and to hand out at event directing residents to new services

Time Management 

- Develop Timeline and Action List management system for Event

- Explore new strategies for using Google + as point of interaction for Bernadette's engagement with incubator, she will be up to speed on the basics of the software

Store 

- Discuss whether or not micro-funding would be a possibility, to cover new inventory, design and Keshonna 

- Lay out initial elements of youth program to present to WC3 & for announcement of upcoming event at party, based on list given by JaWaun and Keshonna - designate new potential youth groups (King Solomon, Greater Faith Assembly)

- Begin to decide on new inventory (a list will be generated by me by Tuesday on the blog that we can add to or remove)

Incubator

- Visualization on what the End Game looks like to be clear, how are revenues generated and allocated 

Website/Social Media

- Determine basic functions of site as it functions for the store, incubator, services (we have a designer that will create site after we provide concept and content)

Local Market Tour

I RESERVED SPACE FOR ALL OF US

The Fresh Food Share would like to celebrate you next month! We are planning a small reception at Gleaners (snacks and refreshments) immediately followed by a Farm to Fork Tour led by Kido at the Greening of Detroit. The tour will cover local food system destinations, including markets and farms. Greening will provide transportation (15 passenger van or two).

Please mark your calendars for Wednesday, September 28^th from 5:30 – 7:30 PM.

Villages Open House and Community Festival

http://thevillagesofdetroit.com/events/living-in-the-v/

Join us in a celebration of City Living – our 5th Annual ‘Living in the V!’ on Sunday September 25th from 12 noon until 5 p.m. at The Parkstone, Parker at Agnes, West Village, Detroit.

The Villages Community Development Corporation sponsors the annual ‘Living in the V!’ Real Estate Open House & Community Festival to spotlight the great values in housing inherent in our near-eastside Community. And, we’ll make it a fun afternoon for our residents and visitors with a Community Festival! Join us on Agnes between Parker and Van Dyke in West Village.

Register at The Parkstone to tour residential properties for sale and rent, as well as get info on community groups, local businesses and neighborhood clubs, and see a PowerPoint presentation about our Neighborhood along with an HGTV segment filmed in Indian Village.

Browse arts and crafts offered for sale by local artisans
Listen to the sounds of local performers on the hour - This year featuring Morrow’s Boys, Billy Davis, and special guest jazz song-stylist Shahida Nurullah
Purchase a snack or beverage to enjoy at our outdoor cafe
Hop on a bus for a free guided bus tour of the Villages Neighborhood: six communities with loads of history and charm, parks, historic homes and churches, local businesses and lovely riverfront features, and end the trip with a tour of the Henry Ford Medical Center at Harbortown
Participate in a “Poochapalooza” sponsored by Canine to Five and show off your pooch!
Face-painting for the Kids along with the antics of a local clown
Take a bike tour of the Villages with WheelHouse (our neighborhood bicycling emporium on the RiverWalk) or hop in a pedi-cab courtesy of RickshawDetroit for a leisurely ride in the Villages

A Blessed Day!

MLK JR. NATIONAL MEMORIAL

A SYMBOL OF A DREAM ARISES

Long-awaited park opens on National Mall

By TODD SPANGLER FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

   WASHINGTON — Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.

   In the nation’s capital, on the banks of the Tidal Basin, a new memorial opened Monday — one that many believed might never come.

   A 30-foot-tall vision of a resolute Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., rising from a block of granite, peering across the peaceful waters toward the neoclassical pillars and dome of the Jefferson Memorial. Behind him, across Independence Avenue, stands the Lincoln Memorial — the site of the slain civil rights leader’s most famous speech 48 years ago.

   “I think it’s beautiful — just as beautiful as the Lincoln or the Jefferson or any other memorials,” said Renee Robinson, 49, of Washington, D.C. “It makes you think there’s hope out here.” Hundreds of thousands are expected for the memorial’s formal dedication Sunday. Nineteen-year-old Melissa Frohman of Maryland — she will be a sophomore at the University of Michigan this fall — proclaimed it “really cool.” “It’s very important,” she said, “and it’s definitely been a long time coming.”

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

   The sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is named “Stone of Hope” and is one of three structures that make up the King memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. In the background is the Washington Monument.

ANDRE CHUNG/McClatchy-Tribune

Visitors to the King memorial on Monday look up at his 30-foot-tall image. The 4-acre memorial park, begun in November 2006, will be dedicated Sunday.

MEMORIAL BRINGS JOY, TEARS

By TODD SPANGLER FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

   WASHINGTON — When Larry Choates was a young man, growing up in Atlanta — and, later, during summers working the assembly line for Chrysler in Hamtramck to raise money for school — he looked at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a hero and a prophet of what might be someday.

   On Monday, the 63-year-old Choates — now a Alexandria, Va., resident — stood below a granite sculpture of the civil rights leader, situated in a place of honor along an axis between presidents Lincoln and Jefferson’s memorials in the nation’s capital, surrounded by the words with which King moved the nation.

   “It’s wonderful to come out here and see this today,” Choates said. “It’s been a long time coming. I was thinking this might not come.”

   He was one of the first: The 4-acre, $120-million Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial doesn’t get its official dedication until Sunday, the 48th anniversary of his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, which was given on the steps of the neighboring Lincoln Memorial. But the King memorial opened Monday and those in attendance appeared to feel honored — and maybe a little blessed to miss what could be huge crowds Sunday — to see it first.

   “I think it’s truly magnificent,” said Rita Davis, 80, of Maryland. She sat on a granite bench shaded by Japanese cherry trees, a cool summer breeze coming off the Tidal Basin. Above her, the 3-story-high statue of King stood, his arms crossed, his face showing a look, she said, of determination.

   “I see in his determination that we can be whoever we want to be if we have love in our hearts,” she said.

   The memorial has had its challenges. Not all of the money has yet been raised for its construction, and some critics have railed against the choice of a Chinese artist, Lei Yixin, as the sculptor. At Monday’s opening, a group quietly handed out leaflets complaining that the granite for the statue had come from China.

   But there was no denying the beauty of the setting or that those who came to Washington to see it were glad they did so, coming through two huge stones called “Mountain of Despair” to the statue of King, rising out of “Stone of Hope” — referring to a phrase King used at the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963. (In Detroit, two months earlier, he had called for carving a “tunnel of hope through the mountain of despair.”)

   King was assassinated in 1968.

   “This is history,” said Dave Sartin, 64, who lives outside Cleveland, but attended Farmington High School and Michigan State University. He and his wife, Ann Sartin, were visiting Washington and were packing their car to return to Ohio when they heard the memorial was opening Monday and decided to stay a few hours longer.

   “I hope this turns into a major tourist attraction — I think it will,” Sartin said.

   The dedication ceremony is set for 11 a.m. Sunday to be followed by a concert on the National Mall. Both are free and open to the public, but tickets will be required for access into some areas. For information, go towww.dedicatethedream.org  .

   • CONTACT TODD SPANGLER: 202-906-8203

   OR TSPANGLER@FREEPRESS.COM  

JACQUELYN MARTIN/Associated Press

   With the statue of “Stone of Hope” reflected in her sunglasses, Kwanzaa Nivens of Washington, D.C., sheds a tear at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, not far from the Lincoln Memorial, where King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963.

SUSAN WALSH/Associated Press

   James (Plunky) Branch plays his soprano saxophone with the 30-foottall “Stone of Hope” in the background.

JACQUELYN MARTIN/Associated Press

   Michael Berry of Washington, D.C., drew a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his visit to the King memorial park.

A good guide to similar places in the area, for discussions on building an adaptable model.

KING STATUE IS MEN’S DREAM COME TRUE

By CASSANDRA SPRATLING FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

   Some dreams are personal.

   For the men of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, helping to create a monument honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was something they had to do.

   King was an Alpha man. But more than that, it was the commitment to his dream of equality that drove them to begin laying the groundwork for a monument in his honor in 1984.

   “We were the originators of the idea, but this is bigger than Alpha Phi Alpha,” said Robert Hawkins of Detroit, a member of the Detroit chapter.

   The $120-million effort, which garnered support nationwide from people of all races and ethnicities, will come to fruition next Sunday, when the monument on the National Mall will be dedicated — 48 years from the day that King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

   In Detroit, the Alphas’ fundraising ranged from soliciting funds door-to-door to a glitzy black-and-gold gala held at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel in 2002 on King’s birthday — Jan. 15.

   “We went to union halls, block clubs, neighborhood associations — literally, anybody who would listen,” said Hawkins, who will be among those traveling to Washington, D.C., for the dedication.

   In all, the fraternity’s Detroit chapter — about 1,500 members strong — raised more than $77,000 for the monument.

   “The chapter raised significant funds,” said Harry Johnson Sr., president of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial foundation and former national president of Alpha Phi Alpha.

   “It signifies that anything is possible in the United States. No matter what color we are, we all bleed red, white and blue.”

Harry Johnson Sr., an ex-president of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, of which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a member, shows a small-scale monument at Detroit’s African-American history museum.

February photo by ANDRE J. JACKSON/Detroit Free Press

Men on a mission

THEIR DREAM: AN HONOR FIT FOR KING

For fraternity, building monument is way to say thanks

By CASSANDRA SPRATLING FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

   There was never any doubt in Wayne Watkins’ mind that he would be heading to Washington, D.C., this week for the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial.

   He’s driving the whole family: his wife, three children and mother-in-law.

   Watkins’ life demonstrates King’s impact.

   Watkins, 56, grew up in racially segregated Columbia, Tenn., and started his formal education at a two-room school for black children. He ended up earning a bachelor’s degree in information technology from the integrated Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro and later, a master’s degree in the field from the University of Detroit.

   His family lives in Rochester Hills, and he works as a manager for Visions Education Development , a charter school management company based in Southfield.

   “I grew up on the tail end of Jim Crow,” Watkins said, referring to the system of discrimination designed to prevent interaction between white and black people on equal terms.

   “I’m keenly aware of separate and unequal. I remember, as a child, going to the movies to watch “The Three Stooges” and having to sit up in the balcony — what was called the crow’s nest, because we weren’t allowed to sit on the main floor. I remember being at a Woolworth’s with my mother, and my mother telling me I could not get a hot dog and a Coke at the counter because of my color.”

   Watkins is proud to be a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the same fraternity that King was a member of. And it’s that fraternity that envisioned building a monument to King on the National Mall.

   Their vision will become a reality next Sunday when the monument is dedicated — 48 years from the day that King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream Speech” to thousands on the mall.

   “We are very excited, humbled and quite proud,” said Robert Hawkins of Detroit, a member of the Detroit chapter who helped lead efforts to raise money and awareness in metro Detroit.

   Since the early 1990s, Alphas have asked every member nationwide for a $100 donation for which members received a brick symbolic of building the dream.

   In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed legislation authorizing the establishment of the memorial.

   Later, the fraternity helped establish a nonprofit memorial foundation whose work became to raise nontax dollars for the monument, choose a designer, do the legal and advocacy work needed to get the desired land on the National Malland oversee construction.

   Another Alpha, Roderick Gillum, chairs the foundation’s board of directors.

   “We all stand on the shoulders of men like Dr. King,” said Gillum, a former vice president for General Motors, the monument’s lead corporate sponsor.

   “There are opportunities that I and others wouldn’t have available had he not taken a stand at great personal risk and sacrifice,” said Gillum, a partner in the Southfieldbased law firm Jackson Lewis. “This is a single leader who made a difference in individual lives and in greater mankind.”

   Alphas in Detroit raised more than $77,000 toward the monument.

   To do it, they sought assistance from local religious leaders, some of whom are also Alphas. One of them was the Rev. Oscar King III, pastor of Northwest Unity Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit.

   “We reached across fraternal lines, ideological lines, class lines,” he said.

   He added: “Dr. King would be pleased — not because his name is being lifted up, but he’d be pleased to see people came together from all walks of life to make it happen.”

   Oscar King also said he believes he owes his position in life to the civil rights leader.

   “He was soft-spoken, humble and so committed,” he said.

   “It humbles me to know that in the midst of all that was going on in his life; he never swayed from the path. I think watching what Dr. King did is probably why I’m in ministry today.”

   Other Detroit ministers helped as well, including the Rev. Charles Adams, pastor of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church.

   “We did it because we know that Martin was more than a civil rights leader,” Adams said. “He was a preacher. We look to him as an example of the church’s role in civic affairs. We celebrate what this monument represents — that ordinary citizens can help the nation live up to what it promises in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”

   Alpha Harding Fears of Detroit, who also worked on the project, said he never doubted the monument would become a reality.

   “For me, it was a reality from Day One, when we said we were going to do it,” said Fears, an account manager for global automotive supplier Magna Powertrain in Troy.

   “This was, quite frankly, my first opportunity to tangibly pay back Dr. King. It was a no-brainer because I recognize that it was Dr. King’s work and the sacrifices that allowed me to participate in the corporate world.

   “And it’s gratifying to me that Dr. King’s fraternity — my fraternity — was the catalyst for making it happen.”

   • CONTACT CASSANDRA SPRATLING: 313-223-4580 OR CSPRATLING@FREEPRESS  

   .COM  

Since the 1990s, men in the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity have donated money toward a memorial to honor their fellow fraternity brother. Members received a brick as a symbol of building their dream.

Some of the members gather Thursday at the chapter house in Detroit. From left are the Rev. Oscar King III of Detroit, Lindsey, Hawkins, Wayne Watkins of Rochester Hills, Larry Boatwright of Detroit and Fears.

Photos by JARRAD HENDERSON/Detroit Free Press

   The fraternity brothers’ vision for a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial will be realized next Sunday on the National Mall. The Detroit chapter raised more than $77,000 toward the $120-million project. “We are very excited, humbled and quite proud,” said Robert Hawkins, left, with Patrick O. Lindsey and Harding Fears, all from Detroit. Men in the fraternity say they wouldn’t be where they are without King.

The Rev. Oscar King III said he and his Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity brothers “reached across fraternal lines, ideological lines, class lines” to raise money for the memorial.

JARRAD HENDERSON/Detroit Free Press

National memorial to King is a reminder that we can do better

   It has been a long time coming. America has been waiting for it since Dr. King was assassinated.

   America has been waiting for it since he gave the “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” sermon.

   America has been waiting for it since before he was born.

   America has been waiting while reaching for the idea that someone might come along and galvanize the nation, raise voices for the poor, not just black, but poor of every color.

   Now, after all those years, just as somehow it was inevitable that there would one day be a first black president, there is now the first monument of an African American on the National Mall. The memorial stands on a 4-acre plot at the edge of the Tidal Basin between those of Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. Its address is 1964 Independence Ave. S.W., a reference to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The memorial will be dedicated next Sunday. That is a formality. Its existence is the milestone. The face of the statue is that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But the statue itself is a symbol of the American civil rights movement, an acknowledgement that the movement made America better.

   A monumental event Senior Judge Damon Keith of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Ap- peals said the dedication of the King memorial ranks with the election of President Barack Obama and South African leader Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.

   “I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Keith said. “I was there when he gave the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and when he gave that speech here in Detroit, and I plan to be there to be a part of this, too.”

   As a man who grew up in the dark times of America when black men were being lynched, Keith said the King memorial was beyond his dreams.

   “I had absolutely no vision of this ever taking place because when I grew up, racism was at its highest. … I never thought I would see this.”

   Martin Luther King Jr. was not a perfect man. But he was the one who, in his 30s and as part of a brigade of fiery Alabama ministers, wound up carrying the hopes and dreams not just of a people, but of a nation, on his shoulders. Now in granite, he stands, unbowed, those shoulders rising high over the Potomac.

   I hope he’s watching.

   The statue could have been of Harriett Tubman, the slave who saved not only herself but returned 19 times to rescue more than 300 others.

   It could have been of Thurgood Marshall, grandson of a slave, who successfully argued the Brown v. Board of Education case that ended legal segregation of American schools and who became the first black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

   There were so many others. But it was appropriate that the first — and possibly the last — statue of an African American on the Mall would be of the man who taught us to judge by the content of character rather than the color of skin.

   He gave hope to generations of people, before and after his death.

   We can still learn from King

   King spoke on “The Meaning of Hope” in a sermon on March 15, 1968, at the Central United Methodist Church in Detroit, just three weeks before he was killed in Memphis, Tenn. He came to preach for his old friend, the Rev. Dr. Henry Hitt Crane, and to raise money for his Poor People’s March planned for Washington , D.C., that spring.

   “Hope is not to be identified with optimism,” King said that day. “That is a distinction between magic hope and realistic hope. Magic hope is sheer optimism … that somehow, tomorrow will be infinitely better. It overlooks certain realities about life, and sometimes, we preachers fall victim to this.”

   Instead, he said, “Tragedy is often a reality, and you really don’t get to Easter without going by Good Friday … before the crown you wear, there is a cross you must bear. Magic hope overlooks this. It is insensitive to tragedy. … Genuine hope involves the recognition that what is hoped for is, in some sense, already present.”

   Hope was always there. Freedom was always there. King just wanted everyone to have it.

   King was a small-in-stature, black Baptist minister from Atlanta, just a man. But he became the symbol of the civil rights movement, and what stands on the National Mall is the embodiment of the dream of millions.

   My hope now is that millions look at that statue and see themselves and recognize in an instant that we must reclaim the sense of pride and ownership and education that people — black, white, male, female — fought for.

   Every person who eschews freedom and education and pride to, instead, live like a criminal or an idiot or a bigot throws mud on the dream and spits on the blood of those who died to make sure black people could vote and poor people could do better.

   Medgar Evers, whose life ended in his driveway. Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, whose lives ended in a Mississippi woods.

   And King himself, whose life ended on the balcony of a Memphis motel.

   The newest monument on the mall is a testament to what we can be, a reminder of what we once sought. When King looked at the mountain, like Moses, he knew he would not get to the other side. He preached about it, said he wasn’t afraid of it.

   Now that he’s on the other side, that monument represents us, the mission to continue, to rise to a level of fearlessness and fight that King and so many other civil rights leaders like him showed every day.

   The statue tells us to continue a movement whose leaders sometimes need to be reminded of the goal.

   • CONTACT ROCHELLE RILEY: RRILEY99   @FREEPRESS.COM  

2010 photo by MANDEL NGAN//Getty Images-Agence France-Presse

The statue of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stands at the memorial construction site. King wasn’t perfect, but he carried the hopes and dreams of a people and a nation on his shoulders.