Breaking silence as a community

Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition, a racially diverse multi-faith group which organizes the major event held at Music Hall on the MLK Jr. Holiday, co-sponsored “Together We Can: A Time to Break Silence” Community Forum held at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Tuesday evening.

The program focused on King’s speech to clergy and community at Riverside Baptist Church in NYC on April 4, 1967 and how King’s message is relevant and can inspire Cincinnatians to break the silence and find answers to poverty, racism and violence. Bishop E. Lynn Brown, Rabbi Gary Zola, former Mayor Dwight Tillery, as well as other community leaders, shared experience of past and present and the mandate of speaking out against these ‘interlocking cruelties’ permeating so many aspects of our society and world.

This and other Community Forums co-sponsored by the Freedom Center and available for listening at www.freedomcenter.org bring together civic and community leaders to offer their perspectives on problems facing all of us but even more importantly allow you as citizens of this community to come and share your concerns and thoughts on why and how these problems can be addressed. We have certainly seen citizens trying to take fighting crime into their own hands, offering disgust or retaliation at violence here and abroad or ridicule the thought of being ‘politically correct’ instead of seeing value in understanding another’s plight with empathy. Cynicism and lack of ownership seem to prevail.

How about citizens proactively offering a better way to address problems before they get to that boiling point? How about fighting for our rights through working for the rights of fellow human being? How about, we the people, being the leaders in the revolution of these values preached and lived out by King?