Beyond the Dream: Montrealers reflect on Martin Luther King Day

It's a highway to heaven / None can walk up there / But the purest heart;
It's a highway to heaven / I'm walking up the King's highway.

The old gospel song took on a different meaning at Union United Church in Montreal's Little Burgundy neighbourhood yesterday, where the faithful, young and old, gathered in their Sunday best for the annual service dedicated to Martin Luther KingJr.

Joyce McLeanworkedthe congregation, tryingto get them to sing along with the bandbelting out the song. As Union United's worship leader, organizing the Martin Luther King service is up to her, and every year she gives it her all.

It's an important day of the year for her, McLeansays,but it's even more important for the children in attendance.

"They can never forget who Martin Luther King was. He was a good man, somebody you could follow. You have to keep that memory alive," she said.

• Tapping into Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King Day inMontreal

Union United's service is one of the main Montreal events to commemorate the slain civil rights leader's birth on Jan. 15, 1929, and mark the day named in his honour, which Montrealofficially recognizes onthe third Monday of January.

As it does every year, Montreal's City Hall hostedits own Martin Luther King Day event today, a breakfast that brings together city officials and local organizations dedicated to the values of diversity, inclusivity, peace and intercultural and interfaith harmony.

This year, those gathered paidspecial tribute to Canadian civil rights icon Viola Desmond, who was recentlyselected to grace Canada's new $10 bill. Desmond's sister, Wanda Robson, wasinattendance.

• How civil rights icon Viola Desmond helped change course of Canadian history

CBC News spoke with five Montrealersto see what Martin Luther King Daymeans to them. Here are excerpts of their answers.

Joyce McLean

Worship leader, Union United Church

In the United States, where Martin Luther King Day is a holiday, they say make it a day on, not a day off. Try to do something worthwhile. My daughter lives in Washington and she would try to take her kids to a soup kitchen to help out. If somebody helped me, I would gladly do a soup kitchen here. You just have to talk to me about it and see if we can get it together. We could do a soup kitchen downstairs after the service!

David Austin

Educator and author of Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex and Security in Sixties Montreal.

I have this old record of Martin Luther King giving CBC's Massey Lectures in 1967, and he talks about a number of things that actually break the mould in terms of our perception of who Martin Luther King, Jr. was. This isn't "I Have a Dream"; this is Martin Luther King talking about the war in Vietnam, and he's talking about the war that should be waged on poverty, and he's talking about human peace and understanding. This was the revolutionary Martin Luther Kingstruggling for dramatic change in the United States a complete change in our consciousness, a complete change of what it means to be a human being and what humanity means. If there was ever a historical moment when that was needed, I think we're in that moment right now.That for me is the Martin Luther King that I want to remember and I want my kids to know because he's kind of been reduced to thissoundbyteof "I Have a Dream."

Just on a commemorative level, I think there should be a statue of Martin Luther King in some prominent, central place here in Montreal that acknowledges his importance and doesn't marginalize him, where a cross-section of people are forced to converge at one point or another.

• The 1967 CBC Massey Lectures, Martin Luther King, Jr's "Conscience for Change"

Melissa Mollen Dupuis

Organizer,Idle No More Quebec

When I'm thinking of Martin Luther King Day here, I'm thinking of a big missing part in the knowledge of Canadian history, that people herehave also had their civil rights denied. We have to honour King, he's a very important man, but we have to include the Canadian aspect. The actions of Viola Desmond are becoming better known they put her on the $10 bill but people don't know anything about the civil rights movement in Canada, or that slavery was an issue in Canada. There are people who believe there was no slavery in Canada. We often look to the United States and think racism and segregation were a system that existed there, but we don't look in our own backyard and that system was cohabitating with the Indian Act or during the Second World War when Japanese people were also oppressed.

On Martin Luther King Day, we shouldlook at how history has treated people differently and to make that diversity of historypublic knowledge, because it's part of Canadian history the same way Jacques Cartier is, but it's not taught in schools. For me it would be to bring back into the light that knowledge and this history that's kind of invisible to many Canadians and not only highlighting the parts of history that you like better.

Jean-Sebastien Boudreault

Vice-President, Pride Montreal

Here in Quebec or Canada we don't really celebrate what Martin Luther King, Jr. did, or at least not enough. We know his name, we know a little of his legacy, but that's pretty much it. That being said, working for the last 10 years to achieve equal rights for the LGBTQ community here in Quebec and in Canada, I can really appreciate the struggle that he went through when he was fighting for the same kind of rights for black people. We need more people like him, we need more people who think about the greater good than about themselves, which unfortunately in these times is harder to find.

He gave his lifefor the community, for a better world, for everybody. And that's what we need to celebrate on these days.

• To Heal A Sick Nation: Martin Luther King, Jr. and IDEAS

Quincy Armorer

Artistic Director, Black Theatre Workshop

I think sometimes it'sthat because Martin Luther Kingwas famous for being very American and our perspective up here in Canada is different, maybe that's where there is a disconnect. But in the business that I'm in, running a black theatre company, I certainly feel the effects north of the border of the struggles that Dr. King was fighting. That's why I like to go to events that celebrate him around the time of his holiday.

I think I hope that celebrations like Martin Luther King Dayhelppeople to not take for granted the benefits and the privileges that we now have. Certainly there's still further to go, and I say that loudly. But, at the same time, there were a lot of heroes, a lot of fathers and mothers who came before us who fought so that we wouldn't have to fight as much, and I appreciate any event and the organizations that hold these events that give us an opportunity to remember.

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