12-year-old delivers ‘dream’ speech at MLK event in Schenectady

There are 1,665 words in Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and 12-year-old Adarius Crumble memorized every one of them.

Fifty-three years after King delivered that speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and 48 years after King was shot dead in Memphis at the age of 39, Crumble spoke the same words from the pulpit of the Mt. Olivet Missionary Baptist Church in Schenectady on Sunday afternoon.

When Crumble hit King’s wish that “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” he had the whole crowd standing.

And when, before quickly stepping down from the spotlight, he shouted the final lines, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” he had moved more than one person in the packed church to tears.

Crumble was one of several speakers at the church Sunday afternoon for the 29th Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, but his time in the spotlight was among the most impressive, as much for the power of King’s original words as for the young man’s heartfelt delivery.

That he was able to speak the words as if he felt them, as if he and not King were saying that “America has given the Negro people a bad check,” is a sign that we still have a long way to go, said keynote speaker Carolyn McLaughlin, president of the city of Albany Common Council.

The celebration Sunday was hosted by the Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition of the Schenectady County Human Rights Commission. MLK Day officially is Monday.

Like a few other speakers Sunday, McLaughlin, the first female African-American president of the Albany Common Council, reminded those gathered that King was a man, and that to place him on a mythical pedestal — she and others said — is to rob him of his humanity and ignore the sacrifices he made.

In the words of the Rev. Dustin Wright of Messiah Lutheran Church, who delivered the invocation, King was not the “universally beloved saint” that history is slowly turning him into. He was controversial, a radical, a crusader for justice, and “the man who taught us to be lovestruck with each other rather than colorblind to each other.”

“Let us confess that when we say we are in a post-racial society, or when we say that we live in an age of color-blindness, that all we are really saying is that we are simply blind to what is going on all around us,” Wright said. “Let us confess that when we respond to the refrain ‘black lives matter’ with the phrase ‘all lives matter,’ that we simply do not understand the issue at hand.”

And while many speakers tried to imagine what King would say or do today, McLaughlin dismissed that quickly, saying: “We know what he would be doing. He’d be on the front lines” — to wonder instead what he would demand of others, and how we would respond.

“Dr. King wasn’t just a dreamer,” she said. “He was a doer.”

McLaughlin interpreted King’s legacy into a message of action, and a specific kind of action informed by her 28-year career in public service.

In topics ranging from prison reform to housing and education, McLaughlin touched on the issues she sees every day that go unaddressed, or poorly addressed, because the people affected most are those with the smallest voices.

Then she urged action.

“When you see something, say something,” she said. “Take your message to the people who can do something about it. Don’t leave it at the kitchen table.”

When speakers did imagine what King would say, the scene they painted was largely one of disappointment. More than 50 years after his landmark speech, the country is confronting multiple deaths of young black men by police and a resurgence of racist rhetoric from high-level politicians and elected officials.

“If Dr. King was here today, what would he say?” said Angela A. Morris, executive director of the Schenectady County Human Rights Commission. “He would say we still have work to do. We have not reached the mountaintop. We are not free from the prejudice and the hatred that hold us back.”

Reach Gazette reporter Kyle Adams at 7230811, [email protected] or @kyleradams on Twitter.

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