Neighborhood News Bureau

Tag: Martin Luther King Jr.

  • MLK Day Of Services Summary

    MLK Day Of Services Summary

    BY: Haley Jordan, Corey Mapp and Kelli Carmack, Neighborhood News Bureau

    Martin Luther King Day brought the community of St. Petersburg together with a Day of Services to benefit the residents of the city. Murals were painted to brighten up the streets. Fraternities and sororities handed out food and family care packages. Information booths were set up to provide new moms and dads with support. People helped paint the city, tend to the community garden, volunteer at the animal shelter, and more.

    This story was originally published by The Weekly Challenger on January 18, 2018. Click on the link below to read the full article:

    http://theweeklychallenger.com/mlk-day-of-service-events/

     

  • Through her eyes: The MLK Candlelight Vigil Summary

    Through her eyes: The MLK Candlelight Vigil Summary

     

    By Kay-Kay Smith, Neighborhood News Bureau

    Kenadi Smith is a second grader who attends the annual Candlelight Vigil honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American History Museum. There, she watched the performances of two young African-American’s, Maya Stevenson and Aleisha Mandela, along with the Florida Orchestra. While watching the Florida Orchestra, Smith noticed the one African-American woman who played the violin next to all white males. While Smith is not old enough to have experienced racial segregation, she understands that life should be full of love, peace, unity, and harmony.

    This story was originally published at The Weekly Challenger on January 18, 2018. Click on the link below to read the full story:

    http://theweeklychallenger.com/through-her-eyes-the-mlk%E2%80%88candlelight-vigil/

     

  • John Lewis talks to St. Petersburg

    John Lewis talks to St. Petersburg

    Lewis speaks on the importance of voting, optimism in the face of fear, and endorses Charlie Crist

    photo by Jonah King, John Lewis and Charlie Crist preparing to talk to the crowd
    photo by Jonah King, John Lewis and Charlie Crist preparing to talk to the crowd

    BY JONAH KING
    Neighborhood News Bureau

    Civil rights is a 9-word problem: “Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, I Have a Dream.”

    Those nine words are the universal American understanding of the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.

    Another two words you may want to add to the list are John Lewis. You’ve still only breached the surface, but Lewis’s experiences and perspective speak volumes to the cold dark realities of racism and the peaceful combat against it in the civil rights era.

    Lewis is a proponent of getting in trouble, something we were told as kids by our parents not to get in. But the trouble Lewis is talking about he refers to as good trouble, the same sort of trouble that got him arrested during the sit-ins and the march on Selma.

    At the event hosted by the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, Lewis and Crist spoke on the state of the election, expressed their political views, and Lewis reflected on the Civil Rights era. Lewis also gave a ringing endorsement for Charlie Crist’s House bid. Crist won the seat defeating incumbent Republican David Jolly.

    Lewis and Crist talk Civil Rights and Voting

    Lewis talks Trump and the 2016 Election

    Lewis talks March

    Lewis talks Voter Turnout

  • Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service Project: ‘King’s Dream Unite’

    BY LAURA MULROONEY
    NNB Reporter

    ST. PETERSBURG — As part of the nationwide Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, a substantial crowd gathered as a mural by local artist Ya La’ford was unveiled on the north side of the historic Manhattan Casino in Midtown Monday.

    bluebird ya la ford unveiling Steinocher mycro school mural 2 mural 1 mt zion i have a dream hubbard darden rice deputy mayor dance

    Titled “King’s Dream Unite,” La’ford and 25 students from MYcroSchool Pinellas, a tuition-free, dropout recovery, public charter high school, painted the expansive 30’x30’ mural in one week with what was described as a “tremendous amount of paint.”

    “King’s Dream Unite” is a community mural where La’ford admits the community helped her realize Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.

    “The mural is about unity, this is about how we’re connected, this is about how we can pull and collaborate the community together where I am not only exposing you to the visual but also to the dance and to the music, I am kind of forging these forces together to have something so impactful to the community,” she said.

    The event Monday began with the roar of the Mt. Zion Progressive Community Marching Band. The 13-percussion piece ensemble’s force and presence brought the crowd alive with the beat of their drums and crash of their cymbals.

    “The pounding of the drums represents our heartbeats coming together,” said La’ford at the end of the event.

    Jacqueline Williams Hubbard, Esq./Pres., St. Pete Chapter, The Association for the Study of African American Life and History spoke of the importance of the mural’s location on the side of the historic Manhattan Casino. For 40 years the Manhattan Casino played an instrumental role in south St. Petersburg arts, entertainment, and cultural development in the 1920s when Jim Crow segregation laws were still prevalent.

    The Moving Mural, a collaborative dance and song presentation performed by dancer and rehearsal director Helen Hansen French, singer Becca McCoy, MYcroSchool students and Mt. Zion Impact Dance Ministry confirmed that arts and entertainment still thrive in Midtown.

    La’ford along with Deputy Mayor Dr. Kanika Tomalin, Councilwomen Lisa Wheeler-Brown and Darden Rice and Chris Steinocher, president and CEO St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce cut the ribbon as the tarp simultaneously raised, revealing the unified efforts of a diverse community.

    The mural consists of a black background with silver intersecting geometrical lines starting from the base of the building like tree roots that grow upwards to form the trunk and then a circular crown. The crown embraces two illuminated circles, one inside the other. A description by La’ford is essential to understand the magnitude of the piece.

    “Black represents the color of our people, the lines forge together in silver, silver being one of the oldest and most precious metals, as precious as our people. The three circles represent all of us rotating around each other for infinity. The geometric patterns represent how all of our lives intersect, everyone’s life journey may have traversed to the left or to the right but they will all intersect at some point. The center two circles are illuminated to acknowledge the presence of a higher being connecting us all together.”

    La’ford consistently involves children in her art to show that art is in everything that they do and see. This project provided MYcroSchool Pinellas students with the opportunity to participate in something they would not have normally done.

    The mural unveiling also included a free book giveaway for students and children courtesy of Keep St. Pete Lit and Bluebird Books. Students received bookmarks where they could write their response finishing MLK Jr.’s famous sentence “I have a dream.”

    Laura Mulrooney is a reporter in the Neighborhood News Bureau at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

  • Celebration and remembrance at St. Petersburg’s MLK Parade

    Celebration and remembrance at St. Petersburg’s MLK Parade

    BY MIRANDA BORCHARDT
    NNB Reporter

    DOWNTOWN — An estimated crowd of 3,000 people filled the streets of downtown St. Petersburg to take in the 31st annual Drum Major for Justice National Parade celebrating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. Monday, Jan. 18.

    This St. Petersburg tradition is the nation’s longest running Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade with the inaugural event being held on Jan. 20, 1986.

    Student Matthew Vorra, 15, and friends spent their school day off traveling from Seffner to experience the event but mostly to celebrate, remember and honor the legacy of the civil rights leader.

    King was “a man who fought for what he believed in,” said Vorra.

    The parade showcased local school marching bands, dance troupes and floats featuring community groups and local businesses who embraced the spectators with smiles, waves and by throwing beads to the crowd. There were even a few local celebrities who joined the two mile route from Tropicana field down to Vinoy Park including Mayor Rick Kriseman and former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

    Yolanda Fernandez, St. Petersburg police spokeswoman, said attendance was average. Some attendees may have been deterred by the lower than normal temperatures for the day.

    While the crowd was all smiles some were pensive remembering the times of struggle while embracing their freedoms of today. Charles Payne, 80, of St. Petersburg, has attended for about 20 years.

    “Martin Luther King (Jr.) stood for nonviolence,” he said. “It is good to see so many people recognize (that).”