welcome to our annual breakfast honoring
the life and legacy of the Reverend dr.
Martin Luther King jr. at this time I'm
going to ask major dilorenzo with our
ret IOT students from North Quincy High
School if they could please present the
colors please rise
please
now the pledge by the ROTC students now
invite up minister from United First
Parish Church Rebecca fro she would lead
us in the invocation
let us take a deep breath together and
lift our hearts in the spirit of
meditation and prayer listening in these
words for the language of faith most
meaningful to you eternal presence known
by many names known in many ways God
whose other name is love love whose
other name is Justice we gather this
morning as a community of many ages of
many backgrounds of many life
experiences each of us called here by
the life and legacy of the Reverend dr.
Martin Luther King and jr. may his words
and his actions guide us and sustain us
in our time together today and in our
time together in other settings
remembering his words that injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere let us look honestly in our
neighborhoods in the world of nature let
us look honestly at our city and our
country
let us look honestly into our hearts and
our homes to see where justice injustice
is present to see where the opportunity
for justice is present let us open our
hearts with compassion to hear the
stories of others let us open our eyes
with courage to see what work is before
us may our time and together this
morning be blessed so that we might be a
blessing to the world amen
while standing let us just take a moment
to remember all our veterans serving
across the world keeping the peace
you may be seated I'd like to
acknowledge some my colleagues in the
room here today we have with us who's a
speaker in the past the Senator John
Keenan you have district attorney
Michael Morrissey
we have city councils at lodge a newly
elected council president Nina Liang in
all DiBona
and and the honey we also have some of
our white councils with us what one
council David McCarthy white youth
council breadth rolled in white five
council Chuck Phelan we also spoke
committee member Abbey you bleep
so acknowledge the Superintendent of
Schools dr. Richter Christopher row the
executive director the YMCA YMCA is
apartment in today's event called woman
I also want to thank our friends in
labor and omok branches here from local
133 Thank You Marc
with that mr. scholar is the food ready
okay we're gonna have the breakfast and
once everyone has the breakfast I'm
welcome back to the Apollo program I
want to thank mr. Keith cigar and the
culinary students here and pussy high
school for doing the breakfast this
morning let's do it you can continue to
finish your breakfast and I know this
drinks in coffee up at the end but we're
going to continue with the program and
guest speaker this morning is no
stranger to the people of Quincy Joe
Finn Joe's named the executive director
of the mass housing shelter Alliance in
October 2003 Joe is executive director
shall drink in Cambridge Massachusetts
from 1998 to the beginning of his work
with the mass housing shelter Alliance
cry to come into the shelter
he served executive director I know many
of you know him from this to the Quincy
interface shelter coalition and the
shelter program father Bill's place
which is now father Bill's mainspring
Joy's to dedicate the last 20 years to
working in the area of homelessness as
committed to the challenge of ending
homelessness in all these positions
Joe's concentrating the expansion of
permanent supportive housing
opportunities of individuals including
chronic homeless individuals the mass
housing shelter Alliance initiative
under Joe Slater ship home and healthy
for good has led to the housing of over
1,000 chronic homeless persons across
Massachusetts this was recognized with a
2010 Innovation Award by root cause of
social innovation forum so the image
essay also led the effort during this
period to create CSP VCH a nationally
recognized homeless community support
service reimbursement by Medicaid he was
the water the 2010 pioneer institute
national better government award for his
work containing the cost of Medicaid by
providing a housing for the chronic
homelessness in July of 2012 under
John's leadership the mass housing
Alliance was awarded the Massachusetts
pay for success social innovation
finance and contractor house chronic
homeless persons this is one of the
first pay for success to deal with
homelessness in the world to date and
it's housed over 950 people chose a 1978
graduate of Siena College he also earned
a Masters of Arts degree in theology
from Washington theological Union the
Master of Arts degree in sociology from
New School for Social Research a Juris
Doctor from the New England School of
Law an honorary Doctor of humanities
from Bentley College he was elected in
2001 and served as the city council
lives in the city of Quincy through
December of 2017 he's married to Dolores
he's the father of six boys and one girl
and I had the good privilege of serving
along joe for a number of years although
it's interesting the earliest say I
always felt there's a little little
friction between him and I was a
department that he was a counselor dad
when I wouldn't up there he would be
ready to grill me every time always
thoughtful always respectful I tell you
his style of leadership his style of
conducting himself would be a fresh I
tell you combination in Washington
that's for sure
Joseph's class guy I also saw another
side of Joe when our kids were playing
lacrosse together and RIT defenses
Memorial Stadium and Joe was rooting on
the team it was it was an experience
I'll never forget because it was a sign
of Joe I never saw it's like out of this
boy experience
like Dolores she sent him that's my job
but at the end of the day it really was
about the passion his passion for the
sport of lacrosse his passion for the
kids playing the sport Joe has great
passion for his fellow man he's a man of
God he's a family man he's a man of this
community it was so grateful to his
service I'm so grateful he said he has
to say hello this morning joven
Thank You mayor Koch for that wonderful
introduction I don't think my behavior
at lacrosse games is any secret any
longer I mean I think others have
witnessed it but again mayor Koch thank
you
also president of the City Council
councillor Liang and all my former
council colleagues let me just stop
there for a second I think that it's a
wonderful sign of the resiliency and
hope of this city to see the diversity
that we have today on our City Council
and when I first started my career in
2002 if somebody at that time told me
that there would be an asian-american
woman who was the president of the City
Council I'd have said all night I find
that kind of hard to believe but if
someone had told me that that president
of that City Council would be the
freshman in high school who lived across
the street from me that would have even
been harder to believe and you can
imagine the excitement I felt in 2015
when she invited me out to coffee to
tell me that she was running against me
and mayor this is at that point where I
have to make a little bit of confession
I used all of my energy to try to
convince her to run for mayor that's a
trick I learned from our da Morrissey I
see here but again members of the clergy
other elected officials honor guests it
is an incredible honor for me to be here
this morning to remember dr. Martin
Luther King jr.
I remember 1968 I was I am old enough to
remember 1968 I was 12 years old at the
time and I got to tell you that one of
the reasons 1968 sticks out in my mind
is because growing up in a lower
middle-class family somehow my parents
had managed to eke out enough money to
rent a ramshackle cottage on Shirley
reservoir to go for two weeks vacation
for swimming and fishing and just a
great times the only time growing up
that our family ever went away together
on a vacation and so that really sticks
in my mind even to this day however 1968
has some other memories that were seared
into the consciousness of somebody who
was 12 years old at the time first of
all there was a war that was waging on
our TV screens on the news every single
night there was political unrest that
was happening all the time
Lyndon Baines Johnson announced that he
wasn't going to seek reelection for the
presidency
there was student activism urban
upheaval the assassination of Robert F
Kennedy when I was in that little
cottage out on Shirley reservoir the
Soviet invasion of Prague the Democratic
convention in Chicago and of course most
significant for us today was the
assassination of dr. Martin Luther King
jr. in April of that year
today we gather here to share the memory
of dr. Martin Luther King but what does
it really mean for us to have memory
what what does that even mean
just this past December 2nd a priest and
theologian in Germany died he was 91
years old and his name was father johann
baptist Metz and around 1979 published
in 1980 he wrote his classic work which
was called faith in history and society
and the reason I bring it up today is
because in that work he said that
there's two types of memory that we can
have one type of memory leads us away
deceptively from the risks of the future
memories where we do not take the past
seriously enough and where the past
becomes a paradise without danger a
refuge from our present disappointments
much like that summer cottage when I
think back of that overrides some of the
more darker and other memories I
experienced in my family life these
types of memories are what we often
refer to as the good old days you know
those right where everything was great
and he wrote this back in 1980 or 1979
and I think about this it's a type of
memory where the past is filtered
through a harmless cliche but here oh
there's another type of memory in that
memory or these memories he referred to
as dangerous memories these are the
memories which make demands on us
these memories can break through our
lives and reveal new and dangerous
insights for the present their memories
with a future con
and direction they are disruptive
memories leading us to hope toward a
better future so as we gather this
morning we have to ask this question if
we could ask it of him which
unfortunately we cannot which type of
memory would dr. King prefer we use
would he prefer prefer a kind of
nostalgic memory recalling his
achievements acknowledging his character
and celebrating as though he was totally
victorious and establishing civil rights
in our nation kind of that complacent
type of memory or might he not prefer
the dangerous memory of dr. king who
would remind us that we too right at
this present moment think about this as
we gather here this morning there are
forces that are gathering in Richmond
Virginia he would remind us that we too
are in difficult times and we are called
to address the racial economic and
social injustice that we encounter in it
before you answer that question I think
we should consider a few things today
first white supremacy is on the rise as
well as anti-semitic hate crimes and
sometimes these are actually encouraged
by some of our elected leaders we live
presently in a society where often once
life expectancy can be determined by
their zip code we live today where
african-american children are twice as
likely to have asthma as white children
and oftentimes this is due to historic
matters related to housing we live in a
world accounted for in the 2008 report
2018 report to the United Nations on
racial disparities in the u.s. criminal
justice system this indicated that
African Americans are more likely than
white Americans to be arrested once
arrested they are more likely to be
convicted and they are more likely after
being convicted more likely to
experience lengthy prison terms as of
2001 for African American boys born in
that time one in three had a likelihood
of going to prison compared to one in
seventeen of white boys think the moment
we live in a society where the median
white where the median held wealth
again by median assets and liabilities
the full amount with a median white
household wealth is a hundred and thirty
four thousand dollars and the median
African household
is around African American household is
around eleven thousand and this median
African American household difference is
doing great part two historic questions
around building equity in housing just
last week the HUD what they call the a
heart report the annual homeless
assessment report from HUD America
African Americans have remained
considerably over-represented among the
homeless population compared to the u.s.
population African Americans accounted
for 40 percent of all people
experiencing homelessness in 2019
and 52% of people experiencing
homelessness as members of families with
children despite being only 13% of the
u.s. population in contrast 48% of all
people experiencing homelessness were
white compared to 77 percent of the
population reasons for this to me seem
to be high obvious the principles of the
Fair Housing Act were actually passed in
1968 as a reaction to the assassination
of dr. King and yet the promise of those
principles have yet to be fulfilled in
an affirmative manner and in fact in
2017 House Republicans were trying to
pull back on the rules that the Obama
administration had passed to enforce the
principles of the Fair Housing Act now
for any of you who thinks that this
phenomenon is purely accidental or a
part of some de facto segregation I
would encourage you to read the color of
law by Richard Rothstein which outlines
the de jure systemic and legal
constructs in place that have reinforced
the economic and quality of African
Americans even to the present day and I
wish to stress this is not about
victimization this is about simple
justice
Martin Luther King was really a person
of his time he had his shortcomings and
his failings just like any one of us
here today but I think what really made
him stand out was the fact that at a
critical moment he was willing to stand
up to speak out against racial injustice
to speak out against economic injustice
to speak truth and before power not in a
violent way but in a peaceful yet way
but yet was willing to suffer the
violence and the consequences of
speaking out to me that was key to what
his memory truly is because it speaks to
each of us are we willing to be the city
to do the same it's important you know
why because it's we're not too far from
that point when there will be anyone
surviving who will actually remember
having heard of dr. here dr. Martin
Luther King or have seen him on the news
or have heard of his speeches that time
continues to pass and so if his memory
is to live in the truest sense of the
word then it becomes important that we
decide what type of memory it is that we
wish to have he was in when dr. King
wrote his famous letter from Birmingham
jail and it's interesting he was in
there for 11 days I believe and it
occurred during Holy Week and it was a
time when they were trying to boycott
the stores in Birmingham to again see if
they could not override the segregation
that existed within that city
but as he was in there he was smuggling
out this letter he had first started
writing on the margins on the edges of a
newspaper and was smuggling these words
out and we hear all the time you know
with you know that this time of year
people throw out the quotes of dr.
Martin Luther King but there's one quote
in that letter that strikes me that just
jumps out and one of the things he noted
and I may be paraphrasing this a little
bit but he noted that time is neutral
and he was saying that to the people who
said not you know the ministers that he
was reacting to in that letter who had
wrote said it's not time for justice you
know you need to wait you need to be
more patient it isn't time for this and
he said that time is neutral he said it
can be used constructively or
destructively and kind of one of the
more humorous comments that he made he
said I have a grave fear that the evil
and unjust are more aware of this fact
and using that time far better than
those of us who seek justice but I think
it leaves us if we are going to honor
his true memory his dangerous memory
then each of us have to ask ourselves
that question what are we going to do
with our time as it relates to the
society to the community to the state
that we live in will we use it
constructively or will we even by our
complacency use it destructively thank
you very much
Thank You Joe so much great words great
way to challenge I want to embarrass his
son Mike Fennell you stand up
Mike attended st. Joe's college with my
son but Mike broke the scoring record
lacrosse up at st. Joe's his father was
very very proud of that I also want to
acknowledge I know Chris Walker
mentioned it during the inauguration but
senator Koenen just returned from over
three weeks of working in a refugee
refugee camp in Greece dealing with
those that have been ravaged by war
driven out of Syria maybe them
Christians imagined driven on you home
your neighbor would give nothing with
you but your own person and having to
deal with that so sad Thank You senator
Koenen for being a example to all of us
how we can I'm gonna ask now we're gonna
have a performance by a Germantown
neighborhood center musics duties so
we're gonna have three promises at first
performances from Ali boy who's one of
our teens becomes too
next up we have jonathan time give it up
for Allie Boyer so I was thinking about
dr. Martin Luther King on the other day
or a few days ago and I couldn't really
come up with the song that really sent a
message to that I wanted to sorrow and
so this one's caught on at the end of
the day
you can go stand around and say that
nothing about or if you like you can
stand up strong
you say why you been needing for so long
if the light coming through at the end
of the war that's your name
don't look back and the doc you can be
the one who like the flame but let this
world burn out in silence
use your voice don't use the violence
maybe you will have a dream by the end
of the day
sit around you say that nothing's wrong
we don't need to keep each other strong
if we can't then we just won't go on if
you like coming through at the end of
the war shout out your name
don't look back in the top you can be
doing with like the flame
don't let this will go down in silence
use your voice don't use the pilings
maybe we will all have a dream by the
end of the day if you know what to do
you can stand home with us - should we
fall we'll be joined by millions like me
and you if the light coming through at
the end of the wash out your name
don't look back in the dark you can beat
the one who lights the flame don't let
this world burn out in style
use your voice don't use the balance
maybe we will all have
by the end of the day oh oh
at the end of the day Oh at the end of
the day next up we're going to have the
dance performance by a summer hat girl
thank you very much these bonuses from
the sideshow YMCA German incentive thank
you so much a little bit about the
future after that don't you remarkable
and why again thank our high school
students for the great work on the
breakfast this morning all the folks
that helped put together and I did want
to acknowledge I know that the very
wonderful speaks of Joe offenders folk
he talked about memory and and how we
remember things and you know yesterday
we lost a great American here in Quincy
mr. Russ Erickson who is 97 years old he
had flown 33 bombing missions over
Europe in the fight against evil at that
time so keep miss Derick sending prayers
he lived a great life he was a true
American patriot another reminder that
freedom is not free we got a hold hold
to our faith and we got to remember that
I in my opinion we have far more in
common with each other in this country
than what divides us we truly do we got
to find that common ground so let us
break the peace in our hearts peace in
our homes and peace in the world
enjoy your day god bless
you
you
