Morristown Task Force on Diversity hosts annual MLK Jr. breakfast

By John Gullion Tribune Managing Editor

Editor’s note: This is the first in multiple stories on Morristown Task Force for Diversity’s 19th annual MLK Jr. Day Breakfast.

Keynote speaker Phyllis Young Nichols had a more difficult job than usual Monday morning as the Morristown Task Force for Diversity brought its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast to the campus of Walter State Community College.

Prior to Young Nichols – an educator, advocate and long time president and CEO of the Knoxville Area Urban League – bathed in the natural light provided by the massive windows in the R. Jack Fishman Library, a long line of singers, speakers and award winners and honorees took to the stage.

Each of the community award winners – former Morristown Mayor Sami Barile, educator Ryan Renee Smith and Army Captain Treven Treece – could have rightly given the keynote address.

But when it was time for Young Nichols, who at one time was a Hamblen County teacher and whose husband is a Morristown native, took to the podium, it was clear that Task Force President Dr. Alpha Alexander had saved the best for last.

Her speech was delivered with grace, charm, wit and wisdom. She honored King and challenged the audience to continue to carry his message and works forward. She managed to do more than convey her message of advocacy through kindness, she embodied it.

“Today, we gather not just to remember and reflect on his life but ask what does his life ask of us?” she said. “It’s not just meant to be a day off of school, a day off of work … It’s not a day off. It’s a day on. … we’re not honoring just to have a ceremony or to quote his words. Dr. King was about action…

“MLK Day is not just about remembering what he did. It’s about asking what are you doing?”

Young Nichols told the audience that advocacy can take many forms. It’s about more than loud protests and marches – though those can be advocacy, too – but she said there a more quiet form of advocacy at the

heart of King’s work: Kindness.

Faced with unimaginable hate – hate that would eventually lead to the loss of his life – King chose to answer with kindness, she said.

“It was kindness paired with courage,” she said. “… Kindness is a form of advocacy. Dr. King believed kindness was not a weakness, he saw it as a moral force.”

“He refused to let hate define his response,” she added. “Kindness doesn’t mean avoiding conflict, it means addressing it with integrity.”

She said the key is confronting wrongdoing without committing wrongdoing yourself.

“Advocacy rooted in kindness means standing up for what is right while refusing to be dehumanize others, even those who may disagree with us,” she said. “It means fighting systems of injustice without surrendering our moral center.”

She said that many people mistook King’s non-violent methods as a form of weakness.

Young Nichols said that in reality non-violent advocacy and action requires resistance, empathy and strength.

“Anger is sometimes easier,” she told the crowd before encouraging them to read King’s Letters from a Birmingham Jail.

“Non-violence and kindness are noy signs of weakness. They are our deliberate choices to engage in justice without becoming shaped by it,” she said. “One of Martin Luther King’s greatest gifts was his ability to see people fully.”

It can be intimidating trying to carry on a piece of the legacy of Dr. King, a great man doing greater things.

But, she said, advocacy or service does not have to be something big.

“We can be great in our circle, in our own community and that’s where it is most important,” she said.

Dr. King, she said, lived in a time of deep divisiveness as we do now. The answer, she said, is not to meet hate with hate or violence with violence.

“We have to choose love,” she said.

He refused to late hate define his response. He understood the cost of hate. He often said that hate is too great a burden to bear.

“Kindness isn’t always easy, but it is powerful,” she explained. “You remember kindness. You remember small acts of kindess. Advocacy grounded in kindness seeks to heal, not to harm. It builds bridges instead of walls.

“This doesn’t mean we don’t have hard conversations. It means that we enter those conversations listening and with empathy and integrity.

“Dr. King’s dream was not meant to stay in a history book. It was meant to live through us. And it lives on through us when we choose courage of comfort, kindness with intention and when we understand that advocacy is not about winning arguments, it’s about uplifting people,” she said.

Task Force’s diverse reach on display at MLK Breakfast

By John Gullion Tribune Managing Editor

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of stories on the Morristown Task Force on Diversity’s annual MLK breakfast.

Just how seriously the Morristown Task Force on Diversity takes its mission was on full display Monday during the 19th Annual MLK Jr. Breakfast, held this year for the first time at the R. Jack Fishman Library at Walters State Community College.

Not only were presenters, speakers and honorees representative of a wide swath of walks of life, but the various organizations the Task Force sponsors, supports and partners with were highlighted as well.

“We’re involved in a lot of diverse activities,” Task Force president Dr. Alpha Alexander explained.

Among the community partners recognized were Reunion of the Ages – which honors, preserves and celebrates the legacy of former black educational institutions in the area – Men of Vision – which seeks to provide leadership and action – and Dennis Oxendine who is sponsored by the Task Force in his professional fishing career.

Also among the partners recognized with the Rev. John Jones, who spoke about an effort to honor the late Frankie Randall, a three-time world boxing champion.

Jones explained to the guests gathered at the breakfast that there is a push to recognize Randall’s achievements by renaming E. 3rd Street – which runs beside the Talley Ward Recreation Center where Randall trained in his honor.

Randall – who died in 202 at the age of 59 – grew up in Morristown and rose to prominence in the boxing realm.

He was a three time Welterweight World Champion and was the first man to beat the legendary Julio Cesar Chavez.

Also speaking was Darlene Ely, of Reunion of the Ages, who told the crowd of a planned effort to get the Morristown College legacy bell placed at Fulton-Hill Park, the former location of the College.

The College – which was built upon the site of a former slave auction – served as a educational beacon for the region for generations. After the Civil Rights Movement and integration, the college began a slow descent, closing in the 1990s and falling into a state of disrepair.

After a pair of major fires destroyed large buildings on the campus, the campus was purchased with hopes of restoring some of its former glory. However, those efforts failed and the city took possession of the college grounds, creating Fulton-Hill Park.

Ely said the bell was in a location off campus but is ready to be moved back where it belongs, on the former grounds in a place of honor. She said the Reunion of the Ages would be addressing city officials about getting the bell back into the park. Morristown Vice Mayor Tommy Pedigo, however, didn’t make the crowd wait very long. While Ely was talking, he slipped up to the dias and assured Alexander that the city would make that happen.

Preston Thompson – representing Men of Vision – spoke about what the organization that works to build stronger families, better opportunities and a united future for the region.

Thompson said the organization is about postive minded action, quoting King in saying “I have decded to stay with love because hate is too big a burdern to bear.”

The non-profit is about building a better future civically, economically and socially.

“It’s about showing up,” he said.

The Walters State Community College Veterans Affairs Officer Terry Harris told about Alexander – Task Force President – and her efforts to recruit him to helm the local Wreaths Across Amercia Chapter, an organization that places wreaths on the graves of veterans. Harris explained that how – with the Task Force’s support – the program is growing in Hamblen County.

Kaisey Oxendine read a statement from her husband Dennis, who was unable to attend due to an illness, whose professional fishing endeavor is supported – in part by the Task Force. Oxendine read her husband’s words explaining that at first, when Alexander asked him to speak, he struggled to relate fishing to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Then, after he reflected on it, he did see a correlation

Others who received recognition were:

• Yainis Rivera – art contest sponsored by Girls inc.

• Axel Vargas Huipe essay contest sponsored by the Citizen Tribune.

• Lyndzey Saint-Louis – essay contest sponsored by the Citizen Tribune.