Pastor Robert Morton told an audience of hundreds that “saving” the country requires “seeing value in your neighborhood” during a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration held Jan. 19 at St John’s Episcopal Church in Chico.
“I’m not entirely sure how America is going to be saved,” Morton said. “But if she is, it begins in here, it begins inside of us, it begins not simply by us marching, not by us protesting, not by us arguing or fighting or being keyboard warriors in the comments section. But it begins by you seeing value in your neighborhood.”
Morton said social change work “means that we sometimes start small.”
“We start in spaces where that seems insignificant. It might be the local school board. It might be you showing up to that parent-teacher conference and saying, wait a minute, ‘I need to be a part of this school.'”
The celebration, hosted by the MLK Unity Group, ended with the audience singing, “Lift Every Voice And Sing,” often referred to as “The Black National Anthem.”
Chico-area residents enjoyed a variety of performances and activities, including the MLK Choir, a poem by Cory Himp Hunt, and a dance performance sponsored by the African American Family & Cultural Center.
Today, Jan. 20, is a federal holiday in honor of the civil rights leader.
Morton told ChicoSol after the event: “It (the event) really is a message to us to continue going forward. Despite whatever is happening in our nation, we’re holding on to hope because we’re hopeful people. We’re believers. And that’s what today was. It was a reminder of that – to kind of hold on and to go forward.”
Yucheng Tang reports for ChicoSol.
Yucheng Tang is a California Local News fellow who began reporting full-time for ChicoSol in September 2024. Tang completed an MFA at New York University in narrative nonfiction writing and covers city government at ChicoSol. He received a national health fellowship from the University of Southern California after arriving that funded a two-part series on Butte County’s mental health diversion court.