WESTPORT — Nearly 400 people showed up to the Westport Library for Westport’s 20th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration on Saturday, Jan. 17. Leading the charge was Peabody award-winning journalist and scholar Jelani Cobb, joined in conversation by award-winning novelist and filmmaker Trey Ellis.
In all, 380 community members came out to Trefz Forum to honor the life and legacy of the civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“The fundamental unit of democracy is ‘neighbor,’” Cobb said.
Cobb cited public libraries as his favorite aspect of American democracy — a “wildly idealistic, democratic undertaking” that facilitates an interest in learning based on no qualifications other than one’s status as a human being.
Ellis echoed this sentiment, having moderated the Library’s November screening of Kim Snyder’s “The Librarians,” a documentary that explored the same idea of libraries as places of resistance demonstrated through intellectual freedom and expression.
Prior to the event, Cobb met with a room full of eager students, some of them aspiring journalists themselves. He answered their questions, shared details about his career, and expressed the importance of engaging with and participating in diverse media — from school newspapers to community newsletters to podcasts — to gain understanding and broaden the scope of one’s craft.
“If you want to become a journalist, you have to look at journalism the way an engineer looks at a bridge,” he told them.
This annual celebration is a collective partnership between the Library, TEAM Westport, the Westport Country Playhouse, the Westport Museum for History and Culture, and the Westport/Weston Clergy Association. In addition, the Bridgeport-based nonprofit Walter Luckett Jr. Foundation brought a host of its students from schools including Kolbe Cathedral Prep School in Bridgeport, Achievement First Amistad High School in New Haven, and Engineering and Science University Magnet School (ESUMS) in West Haven.
The celebration began with a heartfelt rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by performer and Southern Connecticut State University student Varrick Nelson Jr., which gave way to introductions from Library Executive Director Bill Harmer, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and TEAM Westport Chair Harold Bailey. Among people in the crowd were Walter and Valita Luckett of the Walter Luckett Jr. Foundation, as well as Westport’s newly elected First Selectman Kevin Christie.
“The call to resist silence has always depended on truth,” said Bailey, who welcomed the speakers to the stage. “Within our democracy, there is no more critical pillar for the truth than a free and independent press.”
Some of the people present at the event shared their stories and memories of Dr. King.
“[This event] means a lot to me,” said TEAM Westport’s Bernicestine McLeod Bailey, who recalled her own experience growing up amid the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and personally meeting Dr. King as a student at Brown University. “What Martin Luther King Jr. did for the world is everlasting.”
Cobb told a student reporter at the event how important her job to a free and open society.
“Storytelling is key to social change,” Cobb said in an exchange with Gabby, an ESUMS student reporter.
Beyond the pertinent conversation between Cobb and Ellis, the afternoon became its own community story, a collaborative effort shared among neighbors. Through powerful storytelling channels like Crew Call and the Luckett Foundation, the students in attendance made up some of the strongest voices at the event.
