Manistee – Lisa Adams pulled a Martin Luther King Jr. quote on a piece of paper from a gift bag before getting her movie ticket to see “Selma” on Monday morning at the Vogue Theater in Manistee.
Rarely do we find men willingly engaging in rigid and rigid thinking. There is an almost universal search for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing hurts some people more than having to think, “Read the coupon.
Adams noted, “I think it’s interesting that we still fight for civil rights. It’s kind of sad.”
Adams was one of a number of people who attended the parade Monday as part of an effort by the Manistee District Justice and Diversity Initiative and others who wanted to create an event that would combine Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Service Day.
The event included a free screening of the film, a table that moviegoers could donate to local organizations, and served as a way to encourage local students to connect with the holiday.
Sheryl Stenwick pulls a slip of paper containing a Martin Luther King Jr. quote from a gift bag as Lisa Adams waits for her turn at the Vogue Theater on Monday.
Ariel Brin/News LawyerJane Butterfield, a founding member of the Racial Justice and Diversity Initiative in the Manistee District, said the initiative has been outreach to students last year and has decided to continue the plan through 2022.
Butterfield said the group had previously worked with Manistee High School Tolerance and wanted to join former Manistee County resident and teacher Shirley Madden.
“One teacher invited Shirley to speak in his class about her experience as an African American woman growing up in the Detroit area. It just sparked interest and so Shirley suggested we run an essay competition last year,” Butterfield recalls. “We brought it up with a group of high school teachers from the Tolerance Group (to share) with active students.”
The effort turned into an essay contest for Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day.
Former teacher Judy Minton attended the screening of the film and said that every school in the district should be closed on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but that’s not always the case.
“It’s one of the things I’ve tried to work towards from the start,” Minton said. “The king changed our country. I think we should honor him.”
She added money to donation receptacles near the entrance to Vogue and said people should also help by honoring local organizations serving the county.
“If everyone helped everyone it would be a much better place,” Minton said.
(From left) Judy Minton and Janet Strobe attended the screening of “Selma” and also made a donation to local organizations at the event Monday morning.
Ariel Brin/News LawyerThe initiative’s event organizers have been collecting donations for Meals on Wheels Northwest Michigan, the Manistee Friendship Society, the Manistee County Safe Harbor and Manistee County Habitats for Humanity.
Minton noted that watching Selma would be painful and that “everyone says it got better, but in some ways it didn’t.”
Last year’s essay competition featured essays by Manistee area high school students and was published in News Advocate.
This year, the winning articles were published again in News Advocate, on January 15th. The competition also included prizes and was expanded to include primary school students as well as middle and high school students.
The event organizers intend that the winning students will read the essays on Monday noon after the 10 a.m. screening of “Salma”.
Middle school student Abigail Harvey was seen at the event Monday morning. Harvey said she attended in support of her friend Lane Piper, who won first place in the sixth and eighth grade of the essay competition.
Bella Sorenson, a 7th grade Manistee middle/higher student, was the runner-up in the 6th and 8th grade class with her essay.
Sorenson said she had trouble with her essay at first but then began writing about a friend of Martin Luther King Jr. and drafting her essay about the friend.
“I thought this would be fun,” she said, adding her advice to the other students if the essay competition were to take place again. “They need to try… We just need a work ethic and try more things and do more things. That’s what I thought.”