Letter: King observance tackles current concern

To the Editor:

The Red Wing Human Rights Commission is pleased to invite all Red Wing area residents to a Mark Luther King Jr. Day observance at the Goodhue County Justice Center at 7 p.m. Monday Jan. 21. The evening will begin with a video presentation of Dr. King’s “I’ve Been to the

Mountaintop” speech delivered in Memphis, Tenn., on April 3, 1968, the day before he was assassinated.

The speech is a compelling plea by King to all people of the world to continue the human rights revolution, not just in terms of speech, but in terms of action. Dr. King challenged his audience to take a stand for peace and social justice: “it is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence.”

Immediately following the video presentation, there will be short presentations by Doug Bayley, Goodhue County public defender, and the Honorable Larry Clark, judge of Goodhue County District Court. They will address one of the most urgent civil rights issues facing citizens of Minnesota in 2013: the problem of racial disparities in the Minnesota criminal justice system.

Please join us Monday at the Goodhue County Justice Center for an evening of history and reflection as we listen to the message of Dr. King in 1968 and pause to consider the ongoing problems of racial discrimination in our State of Minnesota in 2013.

Joanne Pohl

Red Wing

Tags: opinion, letters