 Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Burlington's 2023 Remembrance of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I am honored to be able to welcome you here to the UU Church and to yet another year of celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King in this way. Burlington is so fortunate that for more than 30 years, even through the challenging to COVID-19 winners of the past couple, that Patrick Brown and his Multicultural Resource Center have been gathering us on this Sunday before MLK Day to increase awareness and provide opportunities to celebrate, promote, and support cultural diversity within our community. The list of individuals that Patrick has brought into our small city is just remarkable and he has done it again this year. I want to welcome Dr. Archer. We're grateful and honored that you've trekked through the cold. I know you thanked me for not being too cold, but that you've trekked all the way up here to our small community to be with us. For much of the 30-plus years that Patrick has been doing this work, the city, it's always left it to him and other BIPOC leaders to do the heavy lifting in moving our community towards our racial equity and justice goals, the goals and ideals that Dr. King represented. I am proud that since 2019 the city has taken a very intentional and proactive role in this work with the creation of our own Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging department. In the just over three years since the department was started, we have invested heavily in it and built a great team to work on initiatives ranging from racial equity training for all of our employees in the City of Burlington to efforts to increase our shockingly low rate of Black home ownership to creating a coalition to work across all the social determinants of health to end the public health emergency of racism. I'm grateful to say that since November that team has been led by our new REIB director, Kim Carson. So you know Kim has been here such a short time they know not all of you have had the opportunity to meet her yet so I'm excited that Kim is able to be with us today. I wanted to ask her to stand up and be recognized so everyone gets a chance to say hello. Kim comes to us after 11 years working in the Iowa Judicial System and as a former Olympic level track athlete. She's a great leader and colleague and she has already demonstrated an eagerness and ability to help the City take on some of our toughest community challenges. Just this week I announced to Kim will chair a new mayor's task force on gun violence in the wake of a year in which the City experienced far more gun violence than we ever had before. It is by confronting the realities of racial inequity and injustice in our past and in our present and by listening and collaborating with all of you our local community leaders and national experts like Dr. Archer that the City hopes to do its part to honor legacy of Dr. King and the other giants of America's long quest for universal civil rights. It's through this work that Burlington will do its part to ensure a more just inequitable future for generations to come. So thank you again for being here today and honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in this way. I want to invite you to come out if you can again tomorrow at ECHO for a day of events honoring and affirming the legacy of Dr. King through art and celebration events will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. including a civil rights panel by again the greater Burlington Multicultural Center which is at 3 p.m. down at ECHO where Kim will join a panel of local civil rights and justice leaders. The city is happy to be a partner in the ECHO celebration again for the 11th year. Admission to the museum and all the events tomorrow is free and families are welcome. So with that welcome and thank you once again for spending part of your day with us today. Just doing a mic check. So the song that I'm about to do is titled Black and Blue. One of the top issues that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was to end the struggles of discrimination and segregation. He advocated for self-identity. I think he used to call it self-worth somebody-ness and he wanted everyone to feel that they mattered. Oftentimes black people turn to music for self soothing a way to release the pain and black and blue captures those feelings. So as I sing this song I would ask you to delve deeper, delve deeper. Don't just listen intellectually but listen with your heart and picture what it's like for black people when they are discriminated. I've come a long ways since back in the days in Dixie when cotton was gay. The heart it remains from the storms I've been through yet right now I'm black and blue. I stayed on my knees I cried and I grieved it's hard to forgive and forget but memories still rise asking why do people treat people like that and God looks at my skin I'm lovely to him he made me say it was good and but people still judge and I'm still asking why am I black and blue by shifting the blame I'm saying at last let the past be the past but I will be first and the servant be served and the role that we saw when love finally wins someday ain't dread longer be blue. Thank you. Today we come together to remember the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his widow Coretta Scott King when Dr. King delivered the famous I Have a Dream speech in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial he not only spoke to African Americans but he spoke to the hearts and minds of the entire world it is with this notion that I welcome you all here today Senator Sanders in his message to me said that we need equity for black and brown people indigenous people and for the millions of people who are made disposable and denied basic human dignity by our society our struggle is and has always been about justice racial justice gender justice social justice environmental justice youth justice and economic justice as we come together in the fight we cannot allow others to divide us and reinforce systems of oppression today as I welcome you I would like to welcome the mayor of Burlington I would like to welcome Beth Awaty representing the office of senator Sanders city counselors especially councillor Paul are you here councillor Paul celebrating a birthday today also chief mirad special welcome to kinkarson the city's new racial equity inclusion and belonging director and this annual event will not be possible without the generous support of the city of Burlington the association of africans living in Vermont Champlain housing trust city market courtyard marriott Howard center key bank m and t bank spruce mortgage and most of all the unitarian universally society thanks to the conglies catholic choir that you will hear later on and to miss webster and mr jack henson the MLK events as the mayor mentions continue tomorrow at echo with the day of remembrance of the late civil rights leader how honored are we that today we have one of the great civil rights advocate Deborah archer here with us it was a little scary when we found out that her flight was canceled yesterday she is the first miss archer the first black national president of the aclu the american civil liberties union that means continuing to do the hard work of challenging the structures that fuel systemic racism and ingenuity in housing voting rights access to resources and more all of which that her organization is tackling in its newly launched systemic equality program miss archer dr archer draws inspiration and energy from the spirited movement for racial justice and against anti-black racism rapidly rising in the united states of america and indeed around the world her bio is in your program so without further ado it is my great honor to welcome to the podium debora archer hello thank you thank you for that warm applause and thank you for that very very kind introduction patrick i also want to thank you for your patience he really worked with my schedule this has been a challenge getting me up here and i am so glad that i was finally able to join you all i want to thank the greater burlington multicultural center for inviting me to participate in this annual event and to mayor wine burger for being here in the very generous welcome and as i said to you earlier the warm weather and no snow i'm really excited to be here with all of you to celebrate dr king martin luther king jr day is of course a day of gratitude and recommitment first gratitude for dr king for his service and dedication to the cause of racial justice economic justice and democracy but it's also a day to thank and acknowledge the thousands of others who marched with him protested with him who strategized with him and agitated with him we do not know the names of many of those heroes but we should never forget their sacrifices along celebrating his it's also a day for all of us to come together and recommit to the fight for racial justice dr king often spoke of the beloved community he said quote the aftermath of non-violence is the creation of the beloved community so that when the battle is over a new relationship comes into being between the oppressed and the oppressor the beloved community was dr king's vision for a truly integrated america where every person in every community had access to social and economic opportunity not separate and unequal but a society where everyone could live lives of joy and dignity where everyone was invested in the well being and dignity of their fellow human beings dr king believed that the beloved community we would experience equity and equality we would experience true justice opportunity would not be parceled out to privileged individuals or groups but instead we would be in a situation where that would be the birthright of each and every one of us and in many many ways american history is the history of american opposition to that ideal and more than 60 years later america remains profoundly segregated along racial lines we live separately we learn separately we socialize separately we worship separately the systems this country has so effectively built to protect the privileges and prerogatives of those with power to maintain segregated communities and prevent the birth of the beloved community have a tremendous negative impact on those who are excluded and this is not because black people would get some magical benefit from living near white people or going to school with white people from sitting in classrooms with white people it's because you cannot separate the places that people have access to from the opportunities that people have access to our home not only the physical residents but the community in which it's located impacts all of our lives in numerous and interdependent ways there really is nothing that place does not touch our access to education and jobs our physical safety our health our access to healthy food our social networks the quality of the air we breathe are all deeply impacted by where we live and in so many ways the history of black people in america is a history not just of control but of exclusion and the legal and social limitations on how and where black people live are essential to that history i became a civil rights lawyer for deeply personal reasons i wanted to fight for the rights of people like me and family like families like mine to live without discrimination and to be able to live with dignity and respect i grew up not far from here in connecticut in the 70s and the 80s the child of jamaican immigrants who worked really hard every day yet struggled to provide for our family because they were broke they didn't have the opportunity to go to college and they faced discrimination because they were black and because they were immigrants and it's discrimination that although they tried they couldn't shield their children from and when i was a child we moved from hartford connecticut which is a predominantly black and latinx city to a working class hartford suburb my parents wanted to give me and my brother a chance to live in a safer community to attend better schools to be able to play in the park without them having to worry and when we moved to winzer connecticut we were one of only three black families in our community and our neighbors were not happy and they took every opportunity to remind us that we were not wanted that we have stepped outside of the boundaries that america had created for us and i remember the day that we woke up to find that our house and car had been vandalized and kkk had been spray painted in our house in our car and i was so young i was just nine or 10 years old and my parents had to explain to my brother and me what the kkk was and why our neighbors did not want us there and after that i was terrified to be in that house that my parents had worked so hard to provide for us i was terrified to plan our yard to walk in those streets and to go to school and so i figured out very early on that i wanted to fight against the discrimination that my parents had to navigate every day that sought to drive my family from our home but i also wanted to understand the racism that required that my parents move from a predominantly black and latinx community to a predominantly white neighborhood for us to attend a quality education and the racism that meant living in a white community was seen as safer and better although we felt like constant targets for the time that we were there and i've learned that america is fundamentally an idea a set of principles and demands the story of america is at its heart a story about the fight to protect and implement those principles and demands who gets to feel like they belong who gets to benefit from the unprecedented wealth of this nation who has access to the opportunities the potential that being in america offers who gets to receive the equal protection of our laws and who gets to live with safety and dignity the work of the aclu in fact the work that's in front of all of us is fundamentally about closing the gap between the america that is promised and the america that is and what is so remarkable and really so heartbreaking about america is its opposition to closing that gap our systems of separation and oppression have been so persistent because they are so malleable oppression is creative oppression adapts it constantly evolves think about the way that racism has persisted and adapted throughout generations america ratified the 15th amendment and guarantees black men the right to vote and america responds with poll taxes and grandfather clauses and voter id laws america makes jim crow and housing discrimination illegal and then america responds with redlining and racially exclusionary housing policies through criminalization of poverty and living while black america makes slavery illegal and america responds with mass incarceration police brutality and racial terror in his famous poem let america be america again langston hughes wrote oh let america be america again the land that never has been yet and yet must be the land where every man is free the land that's mine the poor man's indians negros me this is our constant struggle bridging the gap between the america that was promised the america and langston hughes's poem and those who oppose that vision we have the power to make america be america we have the power to make america be america where the beloved community seeks to include oppression and racism seek to exclude where everyone in the beloved community is treated with dignity racism defines its victims as unworthy as less than to get to the beloved community to make america be america we need to fight against racism which to quote dr king inflicts spiritual and physical homicide on its victims now of course this is a long and hard struggle this fight to define who belongs and to create the beloved community in 1857 Frederick Douglass who you all know as an escaped enslaved person who became a prominent activist and abolitionist an author public speaker he warned that freedom wouldn't come easy it takes constant struggle constant fight he said quote if there is no struggle there is no progress those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground they want rain without thunder and lightning they want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters one of the most powerful strategies that the opponents of racial justice use is to tell us that we have no reason to fight that we have no basis for outrage that we have to keep our protests in check and wait but we know that isn't true today the fight for freedom takes thunder and lightning the fight for freedom requires the ocean's awful roar for more than a century after that speech by Frederick Douglass in his famous letter from Birmingham jail dr king responded to members of the clergy who called his work unwise and untimely dr king wrote we know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given voluntarily given by the oppressor it must be demanded by the oppressed and over the past several years we have all heard the demands of the oppressed and we are beginning to shine a piercing light on all of the practices that are not only a part of america's racist past but that remain central to america's current present dehumanization of black bodies black communities and black identity and by calling out the breath of america's sins against black people we are finally locating the source of black america's problems not in black people but in the racism that's woven into the fabric of america and we are pulling on the thread that connects so much of america's systems laws and structures the need to control regulate and devalue black people the need to tell us that we may have helped build this country that we may have given our bodies in america's wars that our culture animates much of what it means to be american but that none of that matters because we do not and will never truly belong so today the question we must ask ourselves is whether the conversations we're having about race will finally transform our systems our practices and our culture i fear that change is going to be limited we are still too often looking in the wrong places and asking the wrong questions which lead us to the wrong answers we are focused on the specific act of injustice before us thinking about how we can correct that individual wrong and feeling like we've accomplished everything that needs to be accomplished when one person is held accountable for that act that we saw but the actions of an individual bad guy even when their evil is caught on camera for the world to see that is not the full story of racism for most black people living in america racism is not bull corner sickening his dogs on black children seeking to integrate public schools while hurling racial slurs or a lone police officer with his knee on the neck of a black person pleading for his own life this understanding of racism as the actions of individual racist people overlooks the centuries-long impact of race-based laws policies and practices that have caused and that continue to perpetuate racial inequality it misses the racism of sending your children to under resourced heavily segregated public schools which consistently underprepares its students for college and life and then puts them on track for involvement with the criminal legal system those definitions missed the racism of living an hour and a half away from decent jobs because your community is ill served by public transportation it ignores the racism of a lack of access to supermarkets providing affordable and healthy food while your children are sick because they are exposed to the environmental stressors that fill your community but you can't access regular health care it ignores the long-time damage to black neighborhoods which were ripped apart through highway development and systemic underdevelopment at a cost that we can't even imagine to black wealth health and community it will be difficult if not impossible to identify one person that's responsible for those impacts and certainly we can't find explicit evidence that racism motivated those decisions but these are all faces of racism none the same so what can we do here in 2023 first we need to reconcile with the past the roots of racism in 2023 often have a direct line to racist policies and practices of the past and we can't dismantle system can't dismantle racism today unless we take the time to acknowledge and explore those connections you cannot have healthy fruit if you don't root out the poison in the tree so this work includes work to address slavery and its legacy people often bristle they don't want to talk about slavery anymore it's impossible to move forward until we have acknowledged and addressed the impact of slavery slavery was a system of theft it was theft of life as people were stolen enslaved and brutalized slavery was theft of property through forced labor it was the theft of identity and home as people were repeatedly ripped from the community and culture that are central to human experience it was theft of happiness dignity and potential slavery became imprinted onto the dna of the nation and it remains the foundation of racial inequality after the abolition of slavery new systems of white supremacy evolved in its place to continue the theft and exploitation that were at slavery's core today we see the vestiges of slavery and mass incarceration and mass criminalization we see it in police violence and brutality the systems that replace slavery are all operating in the same vein as systems of theft theft of life theft of property theft of identity and home theft of happiness dignity and potential they've adapted as they always have but their work is the same the death of Keenan Anderson a black man who was tased to death by the LAPD and died just a few days ago he's the third person of color killed by the LAPD in 2023 we are just a few weeks in he's the third person of color killed by the LAPD in 2023 it's on my heart today and so i'm going to use that as an example the example of policing and public safety black people and black communities deserve effective and just public safety but as we all know the black community's relationship with policing has always been fraught and that isn't a flaw in the system it is endemic to its origin and design from their inception police have been tasked with protecting power and privilege often by exerting control over black people and enforcing racial order modern policing has its roots into suppression of slave revolts and in the creation of patrols to capture enslaved people who had escaped police were not the only tool of control of formerly enslaved people every element of the criminal legal system was brought to bear even as chattel slavery ended black people were forced back into forced labor through convict leasing systems communities created categories of crime as a pretext to arrest black people or just arrested them without any pretext at all and court sentenced them back into forced labor and during jim crow police forces throughout the south brutally enforced segregation they joined lynch mobs during the civil rights movement police officers beat protesters who marched for equality and police were enlisted toward off residential integration and protect the people who were terrorizing black families like mine who dared to move to historically white neighborhoods and today we're still too often using the police as a tool to subjugate control regulate surveil and devalue black people and other people of color and i'm sure that many of you have heard people say that this moment calls for a radical rethinking and transformation of our public safety system and you probably wonder what does that even mean and where do we begin for me a true transformation would mean that police are not the only resort for addressing harm it means removing police from enforcement of low level offenses that shouldn't be criminalized in the first place today in communities of color we have defunded education defunded affordable housing defunded public transit and environmental safety we have divested from the things that would make our communities truly healthy happy and safe true transformation would mean investing in the resources and institutions that will allow communities to thrive affluent white communities already live in a world where they choose to fund youth health housing and education as their primary investment in community safety and happiness i'm sure that many of you live in communities like these i know that i do today i drove around burlington and did not see one police officer but it seemed like a very safe and happy and healthy community communities like this have lower crime rates not because they have more police but because they have more resources to support the health and well-being of their community in a way that reduces crime they don't criminalize their children they design their own lives so that they walk through the world without having much contact or interaction with police at all we need to identify and unravel the bias that leads us to believe that the same is not possible in communities of color we're using police to manage the problems that our unequal systems has produced and instead we have to invest in meeting those challenges and those needs head on in every single community in order to transform an institution we need to wrestle with the racism that's underneath it and of course policing and public safety are not the only example it's just the one as i said that was been on my heart today and it's been in the headlines for many many years second i think we need to eliminate the barriers to full participation in our political process following emancipation in a case called dred Scott versus sanford the united state supreme court proclaimed that black people possessed no rights or privileges beyond what white men might choose to grant them i think this belief is alive and well in too many areas of our life i believe that it motivates the wave of voter suppression laws we're seeing sweeping across the country remember that dr king said voting is the foundation stone for political action with it the negro can eventually vote out of office public officials who bar the doorway to decent housing public safety jobs and decent integrated education the right to vote is powerful and i think what we are seeing today is heartbreaking and disgraceful but totally predictable the reaction to increasing political participation by people of color has always been a wave of voter suppression efforts the 2008 election was the first presidential election in american history in which voters of color were one fourth of the nation's eligible electorate and that election also saw a massive shift in the composition of early in-person voting with black voters casting their votes early in person more frequently than white voters and the result was unprecedented efforts to cut back early in-person voting in states all around the country and we also saw voter id laws and voter purges and that is what we're seeing today again that it was predictable doesn't make it any less heartbreaking or devastating since the founding of our democracy black voters and other voters of color have had to overcome relentless efforts to block us from casting our ballots while the 15th amendment guaranteed the right to vote on account of race except for women of course because women were not included in reality black people who wanted to exercise their right to vote were intimidated beaten and sometimes killed those brutal efforts were followed by literacy tests and then poll taxes and grandfather clauses so the fight to keep people of color from voting started with outright denial and brutality and then it evolved into creative and ingenious methods to deny and dilute and suppress the right to vote we did have a period of relatively robust participation but then there was retrenchment as there always is and although there are no more literacy tests and grandfather clauses today we see a new generation of retrenchment and tools being employed across the country discriminatory redistricting and annexation plans voter identification laws and verification laws voter purges at large election schemes a lack of voting machines and communities of color that means that black people had to wait in line for six seven eight nine hours to cast their ballot and traditionally we have framed it as a fight for access to our democracy now the fight really is to protect our democracy both protecting access for all eligible voters and what has become clear over the last several years to shore up democracy for everyone democracy is a threat to white supremacy and so white supremacy is a threat to our democracy in so many areas of civil rights and civil liberties we are fighting a battle of ideas but that does not mean anything if those who currently have an exercise disproportionate political power are able to use that power across the country to systematically disenfranchise people of color not only does it erect barriers to political participation it will have the effect of further discouraging people from participating in the political process and that is how democracies die when people believe that they don't have any political power and worse when they may in fact be right and then finally i want to mention that we need to challenge justice by geography we are only as strong as our individual parts as a country we're only as strong as our individual states there is work we all have to do to build a future where we the people means everyone everywhere can access their fundamental rights regardless of where they live where everyone everywhere can live a choice filled life with dignity and respect justice by geography has been a part of america's story from the very very beginning place and space have long decided whether one is free or faces injustice whether one has access to opportunity and this truth is as clear today as it has ever been our country's union is barely being held together and the nation's past and present are being mapped along regional lines we live in two americas and geography increasingly determines whether one receives the full rights of citizenship and belonging today the right to vote the right to make healthcare decisions and the right to marry who you love depends on whether you live in california or arkansas florida or illinois as i said black voters stood in the baking sun for hours to vote in a senate race simply because they're georgians classrooms have been censored and students have been silenced and fed an alternate version of american history one that erases the legacy and reality of racial inequality and systemic racial oppression because they live in florida we have to map a future where children have access to a high quality education regardless of where they live we have to map a future where everyone has equal access to the ballot because our country needs more voices heard not fewer as we move forward from today we need you to join the fight to unravel the racism that has woven itself into our systems and which grows deeper and more complex every day people from all corners and segments of our society have been speaking out against the racial divides that plague our communities and economies and that's obviously an important step and it is absolutely welcome i drove past some folks holding up black lives matter sign and it was wonderful and heartening to see that people are still working to get that message out but we do need more at the end of the day these statements are not equally calibrated to the power that we all hold to transform our systems to affect change statements of support and increased diversity is an important first step but they can only do so much unless we also see systemic change we need to say that racism racism is wrong but will you put the full weight of your power and privilege behind those words you don't have to have created an equitable system to be a beneficiary of that system and as a participant and a beneficiary in an equitable systems we all need to decide whether we are going to embrace unearned privilege or work every single day to dismantle it i think that's a moral decision that each of us has to navigate over centuries america has created a system where wealth opportunity education health safety are all inequitably distributed on the basis of race those systems don't require bad actors to perpetuate them what they do require are everyday people good people to turn their backs to the injustices that benefit them martin luther king wrote quote we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly we are responsible for dismantling systems of oppression because we are all bound together in that network we are all responsible for each other we are all called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves we are responsible for dismantling systems of oppression because the only thing that is necessary for the triumph of evil over good is for people like you to do nothing you have extraordinary power and influence in every room that you are in every single day be an ally for racial justice civil rights leader mary mcleod bethune said that if we have the courage and tenacity of our forebearers who stood firmly like a rock against the lash of slavery we shall find a way to do for our day what they did for theirs this is our challenge it is what i wake up thinking about every morning it is what has helped me get through some of the most challenging days of the last several years this is the call to action for all of us and of course we know that the road forward isn't simple and true freedom true inclusion true equality will not be given easily it will take every bit of ingenuity every member of our community to ensure that we continue to move forward towards the beloved community progress will be halting as it always is for every two steps forward we can expect to take one step back progress will always be met with retrenchment toward the end of his poem Langston Hughes makes a promise and it is a promise that we are all called upon to embrace today but every day America oh yes I say it plain America never was America to me and yet I swear this oath America will be today on this day of gratitude and reflection we are all called upon to renew our pledge to work to make America America to move us closer to the beloved community and to continue the work and vision of Dr. King thank you bonjour I know you speak a little French right so we are all journey from the democrat part of Congo the Congolese career so as you as you guys you know Congo is in a central Africa and we speak five languages and almost 400 dialects but this evening we're gonna gonna sing three three songs in French Lingala and Swahili okay thank you the first song is in French so merci jezi it means thank you jesus we praise you we adore you we sing to you and we acclaim you merci jezi merci jezi merci jezi jezi merci jezi merci jezi alleluia allelu nous te nous télou alleluia allelu te chantons te chantons nous te chantons nous t'acclamons anata si jesus merci jesus the second song will be in Lingala lo boko nangai eko simba ezumakasi nako koe ate means my hands shakes hand with jesus and i'll not fall nako koe eko simba ezumakasi nako koe thank you so much and at the end we're gonna sing in Swahili i know a lot of american people they went in Kenya Tanzania why not in Congo Rwanda they speak Swahili right okay tuna shukuru babawa mungu babawa mbinguni so it means we'll sing all days of our lives because of your kindness to us the peace you gave us and the life you gave us and i'm gonna finish with one quote of marty leuther king who said we may all have come from different ships but we are in the same boat now thank you thank you so much as a member of our trusted community voices of the seer of Burlington and also i'm a human rights activist so all Congolese people they told me to say one thing you guys you you you have a place to think about a global justice because many things happen in the democrat republic of Congo there's like 20 years ago but people they are very silent i'll ask you guys to go through the the the story what happened the east part of the democrat of Congo thank you so much our Congolese friends i'm from Kenya and so i i understand that kind of music and i'm so i was i'm supposed to sing i wish i knew how it would feel to be free but if you will indulge me i'm going to ask my Congolese friends to sing with me this song thank you you know marty leuther king um dr marty leuther king understood the power of music as a weapon that can create change and so today you've listened to various pieces from our african friends here and we know that the music in the in america is a music of power and stories so today there's just so much to say you know and i know you know these stories well and um dr martin leuther king used music alongside he collaborated with other musicians like nina simon aritha franklin mahalia jackson and so many others alongside him to inspire others to remind themselves that they were not alone that they had to remain hopeful that there was a light at the end of the tunnel so this song i will sing just to remind ourselves of times past this song that became an anthem every time he marched whenever he had events and people would gather together and nina simon sung this song and i listened to it one time and i was like smitten and i loved the song i'm not going to sing like simon but i will try this is my rendition sing like me are we it'll feel to be free i wish i could break all the chains holding me i could say all the things that i should say i can't breathe up in the door for me i need a piece of the pie my black life matters same loud saying i'm clean for the whole wide world to hear i wish i could share all the love that's in my heart that keeps us apart i wish you could know what it means to be me then you'd see that every man ought to be free as i could give all the love i wish i could live like i'm long all the things that i should do and oh i'm way overdue i'll be starting a new sing with me in the sky and look down at the sea they're not saying i'm free and i'll sing yes i would sing would you say that and i'll sing yes i would sing i really can't hear you now i would say yes i would sing come on now i would say yes i would say i would sing yes i would sing come on now i can't hear you i would sing i know how it feels so i would sing come on i need to hear you back yes i would sing i'd say i'm free yes i would sing yes i would yes i would sing yes free yes i would sing oh yes i already know to be thank you now as we go head out we will sing together this beautiful anthem that symbolized all the themes that dr martin luther king was fighting for social justice discrimination ending ending discrimination and you know all the things that he was fighting for so as you walk outside i hope that you feel inspired as you go out there do your part make this dream a reality in your life we shall we shall lord will see us through lord will see yes he shall we'll see truth shall make us free overcome thank you thank you thank you very much in the true spirit of dr king thanks to all our wonderful musicians and so as we take our leave of this wonderful space and we carry the dream of dr king in our hearts in our thoughts going forward to build a more equitable society a more livable world i would like to thank you all so i just want to invite you to come up front and greet our esteemed keynote speaker just to help welcome her to berlington to cold berlington vermont and i'm going to ask him carson also to join her and this is a good opportunity to welcome her to berlington except she's here in on a more permanent basis other than her keynote so don't start a conversation just a brief greeting