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How to observe holiday refuels debate

Martin Luther King Jr. Day event organizers say the holiday is for everyone.

By MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published January 16, 2005

DADE CITY - Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a holiday intended to honor a civil rights icon and unify people.

But in casual conversation, it's a subject that provokes disparate opinions and reactions.

Is the national holiday a time for celebration and tribute, or a chance to sleep in on a three-day weekend? Is it a day to take kids to sports events or dress them up for church programs?

In fact, does King deserve a holiday at all?

Ask around, and the answer is neither simple nor singular.

Allison Todd won't open her downtown coffee shop Monday, not out of deference to King but because business dries up with the closing of government offices.

She doesn't object to the holiday, but she also doesn't feel a conviction to participate in it.

"Nobody's saying we shouldn't honor him," Todd said.

"I am. I'm saying that," replied Ralph Berritano, a customer at the shop. "Honor my brother who went to Vietnam and won all sorts of medals."

Berritano said he will visit a veterans cemetery Monday; their sacrifices, he said, hold more meaning to him than King's work. In addition to promoting civil rights, King opposed the Vietnam War.

"You'll find a lot of people feel that way," said Berritano, 67.

But to organizers of King Day events, the message is starkly different: This holiday is for everyone.

"A lot of people think it's for blacks, but it's for all races," said the Rev. William Hanner, pastor of At the Church of the Living Christ, which is hosting this year's program.

Last year's event was staged at a church in Lumberton, outside Zephyrhills where a divisive fight persisted for months over the renaming of a city street for King. The issue polarized people largely along racial lines and shocked a community unaware of a race problem.

Zephyrhills City Manager Steve Spina favored renaming the street. He said the issue illuminated different experiences of white and black people living in the same community.

"A lot of whites don't view Martin Luther King the same way that African-Americans do," Spina said.

But King's work, Spina suggested, benefited everyone.

"When you integrated a school, you allowed black children to have an opportunity for more equal education," he said. "But we all ended up better off. It wasn't a good place to be."

Back at the coffee shop, Berritano questioned the segregation of the holiday from a different angle: Why is it not celebrated in white churches?

Spina agreed, somewhat:

"The whole thing has to be a two-way street," he said. "Maybe some whites don't feel they're welcome. That might be some of it. Probably some of them are just going to go to the mall."

WHERE: At the Church of the Living Christ, 13415 Johnson St., Dade City

WHEN: 11 a.m. Monday

ADMISSION: Free

Includes a keynote speech, choir performances and a reception

[Last modified January 16, 2005, 00:33:22]