Last year, the Marcus Center’s Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration was listed on the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center’s calendar. This year, the event’s 35th anniversary, it is not. It’s an unfortunate lapse for many reasons. Milwaukee is one of but two cities (the other is Atlanta, Ga.) that have, since 1984, held an annual commemoration of the civil rights leader’s legacy with a youth-focused cultural program.
Sponsored by the Forest County Potawatomi Foundation (among a score of Milwaukee corporations, arts organizations, Aurora Health Care, educational entities, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Brewers and Bucks, the MLK Birthday Celebration represents the city’s broad spectrum of diverse allies in the common cause for social justice. There are few opportunities like this one to gather as a community coalition. The symbolic value of LGBTQ people joining with others in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. should not be lost on our leadership.
Besides, beyond solidarity, we need to show gratitude and acknowledge our own LGBTQ activists rode the wave of King’s civil rights movement. Were it not for the actions of Milwaukee State Representative Lloyd Barbee, our black political ally during the pre-Stonewall days of the liberation struggle, the passage of Wisconsin’s Gay Rights Bill (Assembly Bill 70) a decade-and-a-half later, may never have happened.
To be fair, I did notice a lack of response to last year’s announcement of the MLK Celebration on the LGBT Community Center’s social media page. It appears only a few people attended. It’s odd, isn’t it, that a Center fundraiser can attract 500+ attendees, and its monthly TGIF bar forays average 100, but only a scant few showed up for the MLK event?
Still, while that apparent lack of interest might justify not bothering this year, it should actually be an embarrassment and trigger a reappraisal of the state of our activism, especially in these times of renewed attacks on our rights. Granted, the LGBT Community Center isn’t the only act in town, and for whatever reason, it may have simply stepped back. Perhaps another group should take the lead? PrideFest 2018’s attendance spiked to more than 45,500. The Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce now boasts nearly 600 members some of whom are sponsors of the Marcus MLK Celebration. So, either of those organizations could easily pick up the slack.
It just seems that more could be done. We know Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the country. Just a week ago, the Brookings Institute released yet another study confirming that unfortunate statistic. Speaking of symbolic gestures, the recent installation of the Rainbow Flag crosswalks at Cathedral Square added black and brown stripes to the traditional six colors in deference to—and in recognition of—the fact that our LGBTQ community still grapples with its own issues of racial exclusion. But, while such symbols may ease our collective guilty conscience, only real action can achieve Martin Luther King Jr.’s goal of universal equality.
The Marcus Center’s Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration takes place 1 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 20.
