Philadelphia MLK Association for Nonviolence resumes King Day Luncheon after pandemic pause

The sound of bells ringing could be heard around the country in memory of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at noon on Monday.

The symbolic ringing of the Liberty Bell began in 1987 at the request of King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, as part of the federal holiday honoring her husband’s legacy of social justice.

“Dr. King had a love for the city of Philadelphia. She wanted us to reflect and think back on what his goals were,” said Joye Nottage, executive director of the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence, which organizes the yearly event.

According to news reports, Coretta Scott King was inspired to incorporate the Liberty Bell into ceremonies by a paragraph in her husband’s speech at the 1963 March on Washington, in which he proclaimed that the United States should “let freedom ring.”

Samuel Pierce, then secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), was the first person to tap the Liberty Bell for the King Day holiday in 1987. Rosa Parks was the second, in 1988.

Susan and Harold Rosenthal, Philadelphia-area activists who supported the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, were the honorary bell ringers Monday.

Following the bell-ringing ceremony, the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence resumed its annual King Day Awards and Benefit Luncheon at the Sheraton Downtown Philadelphia Hotel.

In 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the luncheon was limited to only the honorees and King Association officials at the hotel while others watched the award ceremony by Zoom, said Nottage. In 2022, the luncheon was canceled.

Despite the hiatus last year, the MLK Association website describes this year’s event as the 40th Annual Awards and Benefit Luncheon because the association and many other Black organizations often gathered to honor King’s birthday years before it became an official national holiday.

This year was a smaller luncheon than in the past, said Nottage, who is a niece of C. Delores Tucker, the late former Pennsylvania secretary of state who marched with the Kings in the 1960s and founded the Association for Nonviolence.

The luncheon provides financial support for the association’s community service programs, which include after-school programs about nonviolence for high school students; a summer Teens at College program that allows high school students to live and study on college campuses; and a Freedom Rides program, which re-creates the 1960s Freedom Rides by taking Philadelphia high school students to important civil rights sites in the South.

The association also distributes toys, clothes, and food for Christmas.

Nottage, who is a teacher and administrator at a Cedar Grove Christian Academy, said she also uses King’s six principles for nonviolence in discussions with her students.

This year, the MLK Association’s Drum Major Award was presented to Natasha Brown, co-anchor of CBS-3 News at 4; Chad Dion Lassiter, executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission; and Ernest Garrett, president of AFSCME District Council 33. The award, named for King’s 1968 speech in which he called himself “a drum major for peace,” is given for work that exemplifies his values of social justice and equality. In addition, the C. Delores Tucker Volunteer Award was given to Aaron Merrill, a longtime MLK Association volunteer.