Sherry Patterson began her keynote address with a simple message.<\/p>\n
Patterson, the president of Juneau\u2019s Black Awareness Association, stood at the microphone in front of more than 100 people at St. Paul\u2019s Catholic Church during Monday\u2019s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Community Celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy 2018,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cAnother year to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taking action, in any way possible, to make a positive difference was the theme of her speech and the speeches of others. Sasha Soboleff of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Freda Westman of the Alaska Native Sisterhood earned standing ovations with their speeches, as did Patterson.<\/p>\n
Westman in particular was emotional as she spoke of how tired she was with the hatred and rage in the world. She spoke of people \u201cstirring the pot of simmering anger,\u201d pointing out that it\u2019s easy to get dragged into that kind of frustration. As both she and Soboleff pointed out, one of the keys to making a difference is to respond positively to situations where discrimination is occurring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe injustice is still unfolding in our lives,\u201d Soboleff said. \u201cIt may have touched you personally, or your family, and your reaction on how to work with it will determine the positive future of our America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Between Patterson, Soboleff, Westman, Mayor Ken Koelsch and pastors Phil Campbell and Douglas Dye, there were numerous references to the speeches, actions and vision of King, who was shot and killed 50 years ago this April. One of the examples that resonated the most was when Westman read King\u2019s words that no matter how you do it \u2014 flying, running, walking or crawling \u2014 it\u2019s important to always be moving forward.<\/p>\n
Patterson said that even though these large events are somewhat difficult to coordinate, she said it\u2019s their responsibility to put this event on every year. This MLK Day event has been going for more than 30 years, she said, and it\u2019s as important now as it was when it began.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would think in the 2000s that we would have come along a little further than we have,\u201d Patterson said during her speech. \u201cSometimes you think we\u2019ve just shifted back to the \u201850s, the \u201860s and the \u201870s.\u201d<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s racial divide became a more talked-about topic in 2017, but Patterson said Monday\u2019s event was more about taking action locally than it was about wanting to talk about the entire country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a political rally of any kind,\u201d Patterson said afterward. \u201cOur mission is to come and educate and to keep Dr. King and his dream alive and ask, \u2018What can we do as a community to keep it alive and push it forward?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A day of service<\/p>\n
Throughout the day Monday, another MLK Day tradition was taking place. For the ninth year in a row, local lawyers got together and offered free legal advice to anyone who wanted it.<\/p>\n
They began at the Alaska Legal Services office in the Jordan Creek Mall, and moved to Dimond Courthouse in the afternoon. Municipal, federal, state and private lawyers offered advice on landlord-tenant relationships, divorces, how wills work and more.<\/p>\n
Eric Kueffner, a retired lawyer, has participated in the event for three years and this year\u2019s turnout was the best he could recall. Event organizer and Assistant Attorney General Mari Carpeneti said she had to spend the first part of the day running around to nearby businesses in the mall and getting more chairs for clients to use.<\/p>\n
The event is part of a nationwide effort to provide services on MLK Day, in the spirit of King\u2019s vision and message of equality.<\/p>\n
Carpeneti said this event provides a valuable service to people who wouldn\u2019t even know where to start and don\u2019t have the money to afford legal services.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t have $10,000 just set aside for an attorney,\u201d Carpeneti said, \u201cso these consultations are great because a lot of times people just need to be pointed in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.<\/b><\/p>\n
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Sherry Patterson began her keynote address with a simple message. Patterson, the president of Juneau\u2019s Black Awareness Association, stood at the microphone in front of more than 100 people at St. Paul\u2019s Catholic Church during Monday\u2019s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Community Celebration. \u201cHappy 2018,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cAnother year to do something.\u201d Taking action, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":22531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-22530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22530"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}