Chico MLK Unity Group celebrates civil rights chief with on-line presentation – Oroville Mercury-Register

CHICO – For the 40th consecutive year, the Chico MLK Unity Group in Chico celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday with a two-hour celebratory presentation of singing, speaking, spoken word, cultural dance and other art presentations in honor of the deceased civil rights leader.

The film was dedicated to John Lewis, the United States Congressman who campaigned for the right to vote and marched with Martin Luther King Jr. Lewis died in 2020.

At the start of the event, nearly 100 viewers watched BCACTV’s YouTube channel, which broadcast it live.

“I measure success in two different ways,” said volunteer Ruth Gordon. “First we can see how many people actually see it through our media. The other is, in a way, that it came together and that in itself is a big step because we have people from all over Butte County contributing. “

Dominique Soare started the presentation with the song “I Will Rise Up” before other artists performed with songs like “Change and Freedom” by the band Hemp C. The Rastafarian Chant and Drum Group also performed.

This year’s keynote speaker, Pastor Loretta Dickerson-Jones of the Bethel AME Church in Chico, spoke on the subject of “Restoration, Reconciliation and Resilience” and emphasized the importance of coming together.

Speakers from organizations such as the North State Equity Fund, the Stonewall Alliance Center, the Hmong Cultural Center, the African American Cultural Center and the Behind The Athlete Elite Academy gave presentations on this year’s topic for them and others who shared environmental and economic knowledge .

“The more a person loves the space they live in, the more that community will experience economic vitality,” Loretta-Jones said in the presentation. “We have work to do; We are all responsible for restoring the soul to our community. “

Loretta-Jones and other volunteers discussed the bell that now hangs in the steeple of the AME Church, calling it a symbol and metaphor for people coming together. The bell was restored and returned to AME Church after 55 years in Trinity United Methodist Church in Chico.

As sister churches regularly join Loretta-Jones and AME Church to pray for reconciliation in the church and surrounding wards, Loretta-Jones said the return of the bell is a symbol of the coming together of the ward.

“It is our task as a community today to restore and revive our collective souls of our community in their former place and state,” she said in the presentation. “This is not an easy task because we have sat down as a nation and become complacent and complicit in the current world orders, seeing things that are not right, and accepting this condition as the new normal.”

Loretta-Jones has been in Chico for six years and has attended the event for the past five years. She traditionally participates in a community gospel choir for the program and helps out at information stands. She was previously a pastor in the Bay Area and attended similar events in her former home, but said Chico is unique in that it welcomes anyone who wants to celebrate.

“From students to individuals who have nonprofit organizations to help the community, I see it differently in Chico,” Loretta-Jones said in an interview Monday. “It is that we can all come together in our different places to be encouraging and helpful not just to one community but to all communities as a whole.”