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  

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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.