Alyssah Hall
Caramel Connections Foundation (CCF) honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at their fourth annual unity celebration on Jan. 17. This year’s theme was “Rooted in Service, Growing in Unity,” and was held in the Seeds of Joy Community Garden at the Anthony Muñoz Community Center in Ontario.
The event offered kids’ activities, music, free wellness checks, workshops, lunch, and raffle announcements. The celebration also featured special guests such as keynote speaker Monique Amis who is the public health division chief in San Bernardino County, Senator Susan Rubio (D-West Covina), 87-year-old farmer David Forte, Renee Willis and her husband, Larry Willis.
“We have ‘Rooted in Service and Growing in Unity’…so if you’re solid, if you have a solid foundation, if your roots are healthy, then the community can be healthier. That’s why we’re doing this work together, so that we can fix the roots and then make sure that the fruit is sweet and healthy,” said CCF founder Elizabeth Pinder-McSwain.
The event kicked off with opening remarks from Executive Board Member Willie W. Williams, Esq. who highlighted community support and appreciation for various organizations and individuals. This was followed by a musical tribute by Renee Willis and her praise team from Second Baptist Church in Monrovia who sang the Black national anthem of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Renee Willis expressed the significance of celebrating MLK Jr. in this current political climate, explaining that it’s not only important for the youth, but for the elders to be able to pass on the legacy and history to everyone in order to keep hope alive.
“These types of events are just reminders… of our rich history and the work that we have to do to keep the hope, the education, the health, and the prosperity of our people in our cultural life. It’s also a method to unify us, so that we can realize that we’re better together and that we can learn from each other. and we can enrich one another,” Renee Willis stated.
Eighty-seven-year-old pillar of community service from Plant City, Florida, David Forte, shared his story about his lifelong dedication to farming which is rooted in his childhood growing up on a family farm. There, farming wasn’t just work, it sustained his family and nourished his community. He has spent over 30 years gardening throughout the Inland Empire, assisting in creating and strengthening community gardens that nourish people and community connections. Forte continues to cultivate his garden which provides him relaxation and keeps his mind strong and focused. Forte spread a message of love and unity and encouraged young people to listen to the wisdom of their elders.
Larry Willis, M.E., a principal with San Bernardino County Schools and servant leader at Second Baptist Church of Monrovia, with over 30 years of experience in guiding families in ministry, honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by sharing his personal connection to King’s legacy. Willis highlighted King’s faith, resilience, and the influence of his family and faith on his activism, sharing King’s enduring legacy and the importance of his work in civil rights.
“Dr. King had God’s bestness to go on the sweat of the pitfalls, the roadblocks, the injunctions, police brutality, Jim Crow laws, bomb threats, water hoses and vicious police dogs. Dr. King was assaulted at least four different times and arrested over 20 times,” Larry Willis said.
“His speeches, some of the most iconic of this 20th century, have a profound effect on the national conscience. Such as ‘I have a dream that one day, little Black boys and little Black girls will one day hold hands with little white boys and little white girls, and sing that old negroe spiritual, we shall overcome,’” Larry Willis continued.
Keynote speaker Amis called attention to the connection of community health and social justice. She said that Dr. King recognized that the community does not live in silos but together, what happens to one happens to all. Amis shared that in California, although the margins are slightly smaller, Black babies are still dying at twice the rate of their white counterparts, and Black mothers are dying at four times the rate of other birthing individuals. Amis also shared that there are disparities in breastfeeding, and access to adequate prenatal care for Black mothers compared to their counterparts.
Amis emphasized the need for collective, impactful approaches with shared goals to amplify community strengths, as well as what is needed to improve systems and create policies in order to enact sustainable change.
Sen. Rubio shared how she related to Forte’s story of growing up on a farm as she did too, and recalled helping her father on the farm. She shared how people of all backgrounds have more in common than they think and the importance of that. She also shared the story of her family and her being deported from Texas 50 years ago.
“Here we are talking about the same issues, the same division, the same hatred, deporting people, depriving people of their due process, their rights. It’s no different than Dr. King, what he was speaking about: that injustice, the violation of constitutional rights, the stripping of the dignity of the people just because they perceive us to be different. That is our obligation today, to take that difficult path, the path of moral courage, to stand up for one another, to really go deep inside and find the similarities,” Rubio said.