Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Boston

In 1963, my aunt, Mary Ann Lederer, and my father, Albert, traveled from Cincinnati to Washington DC to attend the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Together, they heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s famous speech, “I have a Dream.”

Then in 1965, in the wake of “Bloody Sunday” on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Dr. King called for volunteers to come down to Alabama to assist during the March from Selma to Montgomery. My father drove down with a friend, and volunteered at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. At the conclusion of the march, Dr. King gave a speech at the Alabama State House, and then came over to Dexter. He shook the hands of many of the volunteers, including my fathers’.

Well here we are in 2022. Things are different, but they are the same. In Boston, a small group of us are planning a silent vigil today outside the Massachusetts State House, for Health and Healing, despite the ugly winter weather. We agree with the Dalai Lama that the most radical thing people can do is come together and listen to each other, with compassion. That’s what Dr. King did. That’s what Mahatma Gandhi did. That’s what Nelson Mandela did. And that’s what my father did, until he died suddenly of a heart attack in October 2020.

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There is far too much vitriol in our society. We must stop this political polarization. Take the case of two women, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. I have spoken to Mayor Wu a couple of times, and know Dr. Walensky personally, and I am dismayed by the way they are treated by the general public and in the mainstream media. That’s not to say that I don’t disagree with many of their policies. I do. But I think there is a lot of misogyny going on here and that is very dangerous. The previously elected Boston Mayor, Marty Walsh, never received the kind of hateful treatment that Mayor Wu is getting. And previous CDC Directors Thomas Frieden and Robert Redfield never had to deal with the kind of abuse Dr. Walensky is facing. But it goes beyond misogyny. Mayor Wu is facing anti-Asian bigotry and Dr. Walensky is having to deal with anti-Semitism.

So today, figure out a way to advocate for the marginalized, the poor, the undocumented immigrants, the sick, the children. You don’t have to come out with us in the rain at the Massachusetts State House at 12 PM, although you are certainly welcome to do so.