April 18, 2024
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Diversity Committee of the Sauk Valley holds a virtual talk on the legacy of MLK

By Eric Ingles

A ray of sun lights up a Black Lives Matter sign June 5 during a march across the First Avenue Bridge from Sterling to Rock Falls. A few hundred protesters took to the streets Friday to protest the death of George Floyd while in police custody on May 25. Sunday, the Diversity Committee of the Sauk Valley discussed the demonstrations that followed this summer, and what King would have thought of the movement. "Any time you see a legitimate Black Lives Matter movement, it gets tied to antifa and all kinds of violent movements, but it’s not true. At its core, Black Lives Matter, when it comes to protests, it’s the thing most sensed by Dr. King,” said the Rev. Dozell Varner Jr. (Michael Krabbenhoeft/mkrabbenhoeft@saukvalley.com)

With the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday, the Diversity Committee of the Sauk Valley held a virtual panel discussion Sunday on a wide range of topics.

The panel talked about the continuing impact of Dr. King, his writing and his work on the world, as well as what they can do and what groups can do to bring about a more equitable society.

The panel included eighth-grade student Destini Chambers, the Rev. Dozell Varner Jr. and area residents and members of the clergy.

People need to re-listen to the “I Have a Dream” speech and hear the message in it, Destini said.

“It’s crazy knowing that this is going on in our world, especially for younger people,” she said. “Growing up seeing this going on, I guess it’s shocking, but seeing how people are being treated based on color, it’s just crazy and makes me irritated and so mad, because all we want is justice.”

The panel discussed the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that swept the country this summer following the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and what King would have thought of the movement.

“It bears all the core of his nonviolent movement, in spite of what it has been made out to be,” Varner said. “Any time you see a legitimate Black Lives Matter movement, it gets tied to antifa and all kinds of violent movements, but it’s not true. At its core, Black Lives Matter, when it comes to protests, it’s the thing most sensed by Dr. King.”

Rev. Irene Lewis-Wimbley, director of the Southside Community Center in Peoria, mentioned the attempted coup in Washington on Jan. 6 as a sign of how much further society needs to go to find equality.

“Our democracy has been under attack, especially in the last few years,” Lewis-Wimbley said. “It’s real hard to find hope. It’s real hard to find justice, but it is an ideal we strive for in this country. I have not lost hope. It has been very discouraging, I must say, and as Dr. Martin Luther King described in his letter from the Birmingham jail, that deep disappointment is rooted in a deep love for our country and love for the church.”

Lewis-Wimbley said she expects the world to be a mess, but does not expect the church to participate in the mess, and she called on the church to take seriously the issue of inequality.