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An ally remembers MLK

Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast speaker C.T. Vivian was big part of civil rights movement

By Dameon Pesanti, Columbian staff writer
Published: January 16, 2016, 6:39pm
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C.T. Vivian, a prominent figure in the civil rights movement, spoke Saturday at the sixth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast at Clark College.
C.T. Vivian, a prominent figure in the civil rights movement, spoke Saturday at the sixth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast at Clark College. (Dameon Pesanti/The Columbian) Photo Gallery

To overcome great opposition, even greater leaders are needed — and to achieve an ideal greater than them, they must be willing to pay whatever price. Although people of that caliber are rare, people of our time have Martin Luther King Jr. to look on as an example of what it takes to preserve democracy and create a fairer society.

So was the message from C.T. Vivian, a minister and close ally of King, during the sixth annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast at Clark College on Saturday.

Vivian was a prominent leader in the civil rights movement. He participated in freedom rides and sit-ins around the nation, and he helped create several civil rights organizations. King himself referred to Vivian as “the greatest preacher to ever live.” In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His speech offered a rare glimpse at one of America’s most prominent figures.

During the breakfast, Vivian reflected on King’s contributions and asked what people would be willing to sacrifice to achieve a higher ideal.

“Are you willing to die for what is really good, or really needed at a given time?” he said. “Democracy depends upon on it.”

Vivian described King as humble and democratic with his peers, despite being the most powerful leader of the civil rights movement. He said King would often stand in the back of a meeting and wait until everyone else had spoken before asking a question. The points he raised often sent the others back into plans.

“The thing about Martin is, he was as great as we think of him — in private as well as public,” Vivian said. “Martin was always the kind of person that was brilliant without doubt but never tried to push himself forward. It just happened.”

Vivian said King discovered nonviolent direct action as a student and crucially understood the difference between it and simple nonviolence when trying to bring about social change.

“Anybody can be nonviolent — all you have to do is turn your back — you have to have nonviolent direct action. This is what Martin was about, actively doing something about our worst problems,” he said. “The problem that gave us the most trouble was racism.”

Until they stood up and demanded their rights as equal citizens, minority groups were treated as less than human.

“You wouldn’t have to know it if you were white, but everybody who was not white understood it thoroughly,” he said.

He pointed to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II — and before that, the deplorable treatment of Native Americans and Mexicans during the era of westward expansion. He argued that minority groups have been largely left out of the prosperity the country saw in the 20th century, but he pointed to the election of President Obama as an example of what’s possible in the United States.

“It took us forever to get to the first black president, but you made it in America. That’s the only place this could happen in the world — that the people at the bottom can produce people that can be at the top in your lifetime,” he said. “It’s built into democracy; it’s built into good democracy.”

Before Vivian’s speech, former Vancouver City Councilor Larry Smith was given the 2016 Mosaic Compass Award for his commitment to the city as a council member and his work preserving the legacy company-sized unit of Buffalo Soldiers, an African American Army regiment that was garrisoned at Vancouver Barracks in 1899.

“If you don’t appreciate your history and the people that make up your community, you’re doomed to lose your character,” Smith said.

A 103-member company of Buffalo Soldiers was stationed in Vancouver for 13 months starting in April 1899. They performed duties in Washington, Oregon and Idaho before they were sent to Fort Wright near Spokane and eventually on to the Philippines.

Smith spent 27 years in the Army, including a time as a Special Forces officer who worked with mountain tribesmen in Vietnam. He credited the Buffalo Soldiers for doing much of the hardest work during the era of westward expansion.

“The Buffalo Soldiers really settled the West; they did our dirty jobs,” he said. “They were Pony Express riders, stagecoach shotguns, went after Native Americans and did all of those jobs most white soldiers wouldn’t do.”

Event organizer Deena Pierott said “building together” was chosen as the theme of this year’s breakfast to get people thinking beyond the turmoil and discord happening in American society.

“When we think of Martin Luther King Jr., we think of uniter,” she said. “And we have to ask ourselves, how we build a strong community together?”

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Columbian staff writer