MISSOULA — While the inauguration may have been the headline on Monday, that doesn't mean that hundreds of community members forgot about the national holiday going on, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“The intersectionality of all the work that we do as a community, where sometimes we can feel like a silo, in events like this, it really does allow us to come together and celebrate that collective ideology and support and growth mindset,” said Chris Young Greer, founding member of the Missoula Black Collective of Montana.
Community members from across Missoula gathered at St. Anthony Parish to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with speakers sharing the message of the need for love and compassion in every facet of life and how that can bring change.
“I call this the Dr. Martin Luther King effect. Think about your own life and whose life you will have been like. The truth is we don't know. We don't know whose life we're going to touch, but we must live knowing that our actions matter,” said DeDreana Freeman, the keynote speaker.
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Many speakers touched on the position they found themselves in with the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
“You need to make it known to your friends, your neighbors, your relatives, where it is that you stand on these issues. You need not remain silent. Dr. King said all for evil to throw the flourishes to good people to do nothing. So it's up to you as well, too. That's a challenge,” said another speaker.
“Well, you know, it is a juxtaposition of different ideologies, right? It feels,” Young Greer said. “However, the fact that so many of us are able to gather here that are so like-minded in building a nation and a community of togetherness and not division like I said earlier, really gives me hope.”
Ultimately, community members and organizers revolved their message around a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
