MLK Day celebration in Somerville becomes a celebration of Obama too

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There would be no way to actually celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. in Somerville today without mentioning the words “Barack Obama” and “tomorrow’s inauguration” liberally.

With lots of talk about this week’s events in Washington D.C. -- there was even a Yes-We-Can video played -- the Somerville Human Rights Commission on Monday hosted its celebration, “Realizing the Dream,” celebrating both national events and local leaders keeping hope alive.

Dora Tevan, a Cummings School alum in Somerville who went on to found the Ethic Arts Center of Somerville, was honored with the day’s Individual Award. Tevan noted how far Somerville had come.

“When I started, little black children and little white children didn’t want to hold hands together,” she said. Today, Somerville is at an advantage over the suburbs for being having diversity to celebrate. “I had a dream in Somerville. All of you let that happen.”

Accepting the Organizational Award on behalf of the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service Scholars Program was Nancy Wilson, associate dean. She thanked collaborators with the program, including host city Somerville, noting what King said, “It is always a rich and rewarding experience to take a brief break from our day-to-day demands and the struggle for freedom and human dignity and discuss the issues involved in that struggle with concerned friends of goodwill all over our nation.”

The keynote speaker, Ron Marlow, assistant secretary of access and opportunity for the state, announced he was an alum of Head Start, which the many educators in the audience applauded. He noted many milestones locally and nationally that brought the nation to the point that we could be watching Barack Obama being sworn into our highest office. He quoted King, saying, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Marlow’s exception to King is that that is true, but only when people are “willing to bend it in that direction,” he said.

The celebrated speaker of the day was Rahel Ghebremichael, a product of the Somerville High School peer mediation program and a current student at the school. She noted that “everybody can be great because everybody can serve,” quoting King, but said she feels that quote every day she walks into Somerville High School.

The MLK observances have been held in years passed in the East Somerville Community School, which was badly damaged by fire in December 2007. Multimedia projects celebrating diversity and Martin Luther King Jr. were on display in the lobby of Somerville High School.

Walter Pero, president of the Board of Aldermen, in describing the long rebuilding process, cited hope for that school, too: “Hopefully we can return this great event to that location.”