Jan. 21, 2008 — Many hundreds of St. Croix residents came with sunny faces on a cloudy day to march in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, the national holiday set aside for King's birthday.
A V.I. National Guard color guard began the procession, which grew to a throng several hundred yards long. Police cars with blue flashing lights led the way as contingents from local schools, community organizations, clubs and unions, as well as private citizens, strolled down Queen Mary Highway past Sunny Isle and up Claude A. Benjamin Drive to Island Center. In your chest you could feel the drums of the St. Croix Central High School marching band.
This is the 15th year in a row the St. Croix Central Labor Council (CLC) has organized the march and the rally afterwards. Unions were well represented among the marchers. Some simply marched behind a union banner. Some held signs with messages.
"We are owed our retro, a new contract and respect," read one sign among the St. Croix Federation of Teachers contingent.
Many students marched with their schools.
"We have a dream," said Thandi Masilela, a student at St. Croix Central High. "That is to be like Martin Luther King Jr. and to remember his dream for America."
Fraternities and sororities were out in force, marching behind their chapter banners.
As the marchers arrived at Island Center, they filled up the bleachers for a program of prayers, songs, school skits and dance performances interspersed with reflections from labor leaders and government dignitaries upon the King legacy and its meaning in the Virgin Islands.
The spirited crowd sat in clusters of matching school, club and group T-shirts, making a colorful patchwork among the theater rows.
Two young children in yellow Church of God Holiness Academy elementary school shirts talked about King as the day's ceremonies slowly began.
"Do you know where Martin Luther King died?" young D'Quan Daneil asked Shayquan Grant, a smaller child. Then Daneil answered the question: "I do. It was a hotel in Memphis."
Antoinette Rampersad, chairwoman of the CLC Civil Rights Committee, served as master of ceremonies for the day. She spoke of King's dream as a dream deferred.
"King died before he could see the fruits of his efforts," Rampersad said. "'Free at last,' he said. 'Free at last.' What is the content of that for the Virgin Islands when our educational and health institutions are rapidly decaying? 'Free at last' is a dream deferred."
Rampersad spoke of the plague of violence within the V.I. Community, a theme many speakers stressed.
"How many more will have to die before we realize how precious our young are?" she said.
After the National Anthem, the V.I. March and the Black National Anthem, Pastor Reginald Perry of Victorious Believers Church led a prayer and gave some inspirational words.
"Many of our boys and girls are still bound in chains," Perry said. "Not in the chains of physical bondage, but in the chains of our minds. Just being born in the ghetto does not determine who you are and what you will do in life. Being on the wrong island or the wrong side of an island does not limit what you can do. … We are a free people, yet we are bound. Free your mind. If you free your mind today then nothing can stand in your way."
Senate President Usie R. Richards tied the King legacy to the fight against violence.
"It is not an honor to Dr. King when we quote him with words and oppose him in our actions," Richards said. "The time is now for all of us to step up to the plate and take a swing against violence in our community. Dr. King paid with his life for his beliefs. But a coward dies a thousand deaths."
Richards bolstered this point with a well-known King quote: "On some positions a coward has asked the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there come a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right."
Richards followed with some words of his own: "Our hearts go out to those in our community whose families have lost loved ones through senseless acts of violence in the streets, during the Christmas festival and elsewhere. … We have got to move on from a society that loves things and uses people to a society that loves people and uses things."
Lt. Gov. Gregory Francis also linked the meaning of the day's celebration to fighting crime in the streets.
"We must put an end to the senseless violence," he said. "I ask that we put down the guns and find nonviolent means to deal with our problems."
CLC President Tito Morales, one of the last to speak, joined the anti-crime chorus, too.
"Parents see their children come home with merchandise," Morales said. "They know they didn't pay for the merchandise, but don't question where the money came from. I say to you parents … make sure you are accountable for your children and ensure your children are accountable to you. And we cannot continue to see black children killed again and again over an illegal drug trade that benefits neither them nor the people."
Morales recounted a personal story.
"In 1976 I went to a beach party, and a police officer shot a man in front of me," he said. "He emptied his gun into the man. And when they asked if I would testify, I said yes. It took six months for the case to go to trial and for those six months I lived in hell. He used to stand on a hill in the neighborhood holding a rifle to intimidate me. I went to the police commissioner back then. He said, 'Mr. Morales, my advice is for you to go home early and don't go out at night.' You know, I have a big problem with that picture. I said, 'If he comes to me, then you'll be trying me instead of him.' It is time for each and every one in the territory to stand up to these hooligans, or you will live in fear the rest of your life. It is time to be a hero like Martin Luther King Jr. and stand up."
After a closing prayer, the assembled masses filed out, walking back to where their cars were parked and driving off to enjoy the rest of the holiday.
King is by far the best-known leader in the American civil rights movement. His preaching and organizing of nonviolent civil disobedience was a major factor in changing racist laws and practices in the United States. His speeches are among the most quoted documents in the English language and recordings are available of his oratory, such as his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, given on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
That speech and the marches he led are partly credited for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The next year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His words inspire hundreds of millions of people to this day. King was assassinated at age 39 on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tenn. He would have turned 79 this year.
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