New Light Baptist Church hosts Martin Luther King Jr. Day

By Daniel Jackovino, Staff Writer
A promise was kept Monday at the New Light Baptist Church on Dewey Street.
The promise, made a year ago by Councilman Bernard Hamilton at the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, was that this year’s 10th anniversary observation at the church would be special, and it was.
What made it special was not just the stirring music or preaching that transpired. What made it special were the presence of young people and the moving responses of speakers to them. At last year’s poorly attended gathering, the absence of youth was so profound that keynote speaker, Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver, D-Essex, Passaic, made a warning.
“Next year we have to get more young people here before our message flutters away,” she said at the time.
On Monday, Oliver was not there, but the children were and words were directed toward them with pride and parental advice.
Of course, Hamilton was there. Although it had been a federal holiday for almost 20 years, Martin Luther King Day was just another day in Bloomfield until Hamilton organized a movement eight years ago that led to it being officially observed locally. He was joined Monday by political colleagues, including Mayor Raymond McCarthy and Councilmen Nicholas Joanow, Michael Venezia and Elias Chalet.
Also in attendance were School Board President Mary Shaughnessy and board member Dianna Fuller; Assemblyman Ralph Caputo, D-Essex, and the keynote speaker, the Rev. Deborah Spivey of the St. Paul Baptist Church in Montclair. She was seated beside New Light’s Rev. Vernon Miller on the church’s raised stage before a chorus of singers.
The program’s commencement was held until Hamilton arrived. When he did, he had a reason for his tardiness.
“The cold can’t stop some things from happening,” Hamilton said good-naturedly to the audience of about 200 people, explaining how a deer herd had prevented him from arriving sooner.
Asking everyone to bow their heads, he gave thanks to God for allowing the congregation to rise in the morning and having the presence of mind to attend the observation.
He then played a meaningful joke on everyone. He asked the dignitaries to rise. When no one did, he repeated the request until it was understood that he meant for all to rise.
“Everyone is a dignitary,” he stated. “That was part of Martin Luther King’s message. If anyone tells you otherwise, it’s an untruth.”
Following a proclamation read by the mayor on behalf of the council, and words by Caputo, Hamilton asked individuals to come freely to the podium.
Fuller told the children to recollect the sacrifices made by their uneducated ancestors so that they could go to school.
“We cannot forget the importance of education,” she said.
When Pastor Anthony Porter of the Gospel Worship Center in Elizabeth came to the podium, he cried out his message, stomping his foot to punctuate its significance.
“Shame on you if you don’t teach the history.” he exclaimed, stomping. “And shame on you if you don’t vote and teach your children the right thing — to take off their diapers and take out the garbage.”
His thunder was followed by a subdued quotation read by Shaughnessy and attributed to the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
“It’s more important to lose the right fight than it is to win the wrong fight,” she said, acknowledging those words as a special source of inspiration for her.
“I won’t pick on the young people,” Hamilton said when he returned to the podium, “but I hope you’ve learned from the people and what they said.”
Hamilton then related a personal story.
It said it had happened when he was a young boy, down South and visiting his grandfather. They were driving in his grandfather’s truck when they pulled into a gas station. His grandfather told him to stay in the truck while he got out and went into the store at the station. But Hamilton followed his grandfather into the store and saw him with four other men. When they got back inside the truck, his grandfather told him those men he had just seen were known members of the local Klu Klux Klan. He then asked his grandson if he hadn’t been told to stay inside the truck. He explained to his grandson that until a black man is recognized as a man, he had to stay inside the truck.
“That day has come,” Hamilton told everyone. “We can get out of the truck.”
Reminding his audience the civil rights movement had liberated all people, he said “We all benefited from Martin Luther King.”
In her address, Spivey emphasized the absolute requirement for people to fight if they wanted to rid their community of its ills because, doubtlessly, Satan was the reason for those afflictions. Of all the day’s pronouncements, hers were the most biblical.
Hamilton closed the ceremony with much the same words he used to end last year’s ceremony.
“I hope this day kindles in you a