Northwest resident, Anne Graves, proudly displays her keepsake portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. / Photo by Shevry Lassiter
UNCOMMON continued from Page 30 and discipline. “Being able to demonstrate that you were civilized and disciplined was critical to movement because Black people were only being depicted in the news as trouble-makers, criminals, and ignorant. The written laws supported Black people being treated as humans, but law enforcement and the law of the land would not enforce that,” Fisher said. When complaints were made against law enforcement or local governments, Fisher said the national news needed to capture people who were clean, wellspoken, and dignified. “We forced the law to respect www.washingtoninformer.com
us by reasoning with our government and challenging them to view us as we really were. That was Dr. King’s strategy and it meant mentally assaulting white minds. I kept that Dr. King on my wall next to Jesus because I also felt that it would take God’s grace to protect him,” Fisher said. Colin Currie said he grew up with portraits of King plastered on the walls of almost every household he entered. His Jamaican-born grandparents held King in high regard and fostered a sense of respect for the iconic figure in their twelve children. “My grandparents had a poster-size portrait of Dr. King in their foyer so people walked in knowing that theirs was a home built around the principles of
non-violence, social and civic responsibility, and a just society,” Currie, 23, said. “They had respect for Dr. King and it resonated with my parents, who also had a series of velour wall hangings of King in their home.” Currie, now a graduate student at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, said he has also kept with the tradition. “My father had a section of his home office with all types of press clippings and magazine covers of Dr. King. When I left home to attend college, my dad took a picture of Dr. King receiving the Nobel Peace Prize down and gave it to me. He said, ‘A man handles the world with integrity even when the world handles him with violence.’ That
picture hangs on my wall now,” Currie said. Similarly, 75-year-old Mary Harris envisions her makeshift memorial to King a representation of peace and power. Sitting in her living room with images of Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy on a placement rug at her feet, Harris recalls walking with her daughter in the March on Washington. “I’m so glad we’ve come as far as we have and we still have a struggle and the struggle is on us. These pictures remind me of that. We have to take the blame for a lot of the things happening today because with push-button services taking over, many people no longer have jobs.”
The New Berg, South Carolina-native questions what the common man will do for a living and said the fight Dr. King and President Kennedy began so many years ago for better jobs and equitable incomes, is now at a crisis point. “We have come a long way and we have a long way to go. The younger generations have suffered because God and prayer were taken out of the struggle. Both were at the forefront of King’s movement. King was an extension of us and this memorial may convince others to put King’s message back into action and his face back up on their walls,” she said.
Celebrating the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial - The Washington Informer Special Issue / august 2011
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