Scores of residents enjoyed an impassioned program and a bountiful brunch Monday as the Andover Baptist Church served up its fifth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration and Unity Brunch.
Dr. John Jackson, president and CEO of The Schott Foundation for Public Education, delivered the keynote speech, on "Reclaiming the Dream."
He said the nation has raised a generation that is asking, "Where is the King?"
"We have only given them a monument of a dream," said Jackson. "We must move beyond the shadow and the shade of the monument."
Saying African-American males make up only 4 percent of the population but 40 percent of those incarcerated, he encouraged people to push for spending more on the front end, education, rather than on prisons. He suggested the government should pay for mentors for children most in need.
People of all positions must be involved, he said.
"We don't need Ph.Ds. We need people who are 'foolish enough' to believe that all children can learn," he said.
Jackson was the Clinton administration's senior policy advisor in the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education and has served as the NAACP chief policy officer and its national director of education.
Acknowledging that people may be afraid to lose what they have, and therefore look to make the best of their situation, he said, "We didn't come from a generation of people who just made the back of the bus more comfortable."
- Neil Fater
