Elected Officials Invoke MLK's Message of Unity and Nonviolence

As in communities across the country, elected officials in Piedmont reflected Monday on the Jan. 8 shootings in Tuscon as they remembered Dr. Martin Luther King's pacifist philosophy and his calls for harmony over hate. 

"We must really ask ourselves, what would Dr. King want us to do in this moment in history," Rep. Barbara Lee told the small crowd gathered in Piedmont's Community Hall. 

Lee imagined that the civil rights leader would have advocated for gun control and for shoring up the national health care system so that people like Jared Lee Loughner, who's accused of killing six and wounding 13 more in Tuscon, can get psychiatric help before they go over the edge. 

"As peacemakers, we have to pursue nonviolence locally, but we also must support national and international efforts to end disastrous war," Lee said, comparing the current conflict in Afghanistan to the war in Vietnam, which King famously protested in a 1967 speech. "Like Dr. King, we simply cannot afford to wage war abroad at the same time as we are fighting here to create jobs, to provide resources for our young people for their education."

Piedmont City Councilwoman Margaret Fujioka hoped out loud that it wouldn't take a tragedy like what took place in Tuscon to inspire Piedmont to find common ground over how to employ scarce resources closer to home. 

"Let's use these challenging times to work with each other, not against, in the best interests of our town, our community, to make it better," Fujioka said.

As an example of such coming together, Fujioka pointed to the broad coalition of groups behind the MLK Day event: the Piedmont Appreciating Diversity Committee, the Piedmont African-American League, the Piedmont Asian-American Club, the Piedmont League of Women Voters, the Piedmont Unified School District, and the City of Piedmont.

After a potluck of fried chicken and dumplings, the gathering joined hands to sing "We Shall Overcome" in unison.