Monday's livestreamed MLK Day event. Clockwise from top left: Ron Hurt and Barbara Vereen; Rosa DeLauro; Kelcy Steele; Jaime Myers-McPhail.
“When we move mountains, we must celebrate.”
Hill Alder Ron Hurt offered those words Monday night as he co-emceed a two-hour Martin Luther King, Jr. Day virtual celebration hosted by New Haven Rising and Varick A.M.E. Zion Church. Nearly 400 people logged on to the Zoom-assisted event.
Even though this year’s annual gathering was held online for the second year in a row thanks to the ongoing pandemic, and even though the livestream was beset by frequent tech hiccups as the organizers toggled between pre-recorded videos and in-person speeches from the Dixwell Avenue church, the overall tone and message of Monday’s celebration was decidedly upbeat. Even festive.
Especially in comparison to previous year’s entries, which often centered around local politicians and Yale union leaders calling on the state and the university to contribute more to the city’s cash-strapped coffers.
This time around, speaker after speaker after speaker pointed out that — well, 2021 was a really good year for money coming to New Haven.
Attendees at Monday's virtual event.
“We are not in this fight for convenience, but for change,” Varick Pastor Kelcy Steele said, his voice growing louder and more animated with every sentence. “We have won victories, and they are worth celebrating … Our movement is moving New Haven forward.”
Steele and others who spoke Monday night — including Mayor Justin Elicker, New Haven State Sen. Martin Looney, Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, Connecticut Treasurer Shawn Wooden, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, and New Haven Rising organizer Jaime Myers-McPhail — made sure to list those 2021 wins for all to take stock of.
They included:
• The state’s federal delegation successfully pushed for the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which is sending $115 million in pandemic-era aid to New Haven. Thanks to two decades’ worth of advocacy by DeLauro, who became the chair of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee last year, that bill also included a temporary (and now-expired) expansion to the child tax credit, which significantly reduced childhood poverty across the nation. “It is our representative, Rosa DeLauro, who is leading the struggle for working people everywhere,” UNITE HERE Local 34 organizing director and fellow Monday night co-host Barbara Vereen said with pride.
• New Haven’s state delegation, led by Looney, successfully pushed to reform the state’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program to prioritize sending aid to needy cities like New Haven that have large swaths of land off the tax rolls because of the presence of tax-exempt colleges and hospitals. The new three-tiered PILOT will send an extra $49 million to the city each year. Looney thanked New Haven Rising and UNITE HERE for organizing and testifying during last year’s state legislative session to help push the PILOT reform bill across the finish line. That increased state aid will be “transformative in the long run, and recognizes the burden New Haven bears” for all of its tax-exempt properties.
• After years of pushing by New Haven Rising, Yale’s unions, and union-backed alders, the city and the university struck a deal late last year that — if approved by the Board of Alders — will see Yale increase its annual voluntary contributions to the city by $10 million each year over the next five years, or by $52 million in total over the course of the proposed six-year deal. “Yeah, we got that across the finish line this year,” Elicker said. “But it is because of years and years of organizing, rally after rally, sign after Respect New Haven sign” that helped bring that aid bump to fruition. (“Don’t celebrate too much,” Walker-Myers cautioned during her time at the mic. “This is just the start. The real celebration is going to come when Yale understands they need to support the city far beyond just five years.”)
• And, after at-times acrimonious negotiations and frequent public rallies and demonstrations, Yale’s blue-collar and pink-collar unions, Locals 35 and 34, struck new five-year contracts with the university without a strike. The Local 34 contracts included the “strongest language on local hiring that it’s ever been able to win,” Myers-McPhail said.
Scenes from union-rally slideshow that played at the start of Monday's event.
“These wins and more are the result of organizing, reaching out, listening, talking, agitating, and pushing people who have been historically left behind to stand up and fight,” Myers-McPhail continued.
New Haven Rising plans to host public meetings across the city this spring to solicit input from New Haveners about how they’d like to see this surge in city funding spent.
“It’s now up to all of us to make sure this money is used [to do] the most good for people with the fewest opportunities.”
Hurt agreed. “We’ve worked hard to bring millions in revenue to the city,” he said. “Now we need to make that money work for us.”
Steele concluded Monday’s event by calling on the hundreds still Zooming in to continue to organize for “even more significant victories. These victories are just foundational. We should display our trophies, but please make more space on the shelf for more trophies.”
What do we want? he asked.
“We want to address voter registration, and full restoration of the Voting Rights Act.”
What do we want?
“Fully funded public education and desegregated schools in a way that benefit everyone.”
What do we want?
“An end to mass incarceration, and fair and just immigration policies.”
What do we want?
Healthcare that is tied not just to a job, but “to your body.”
“We will not be silent anymore. This isn’t the time to be complacent.”
Just as Esau in his day sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.Not all.But some Black Minsters and Judas Goat sell out Black Leaders have sold out to the white political machine.
Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD…Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD…Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words every one from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that use their tongues, and say, He saith." (Jeremiah 23:1-2,16,30-31)
What a sham.And this is why The condition of the Black church in the 21st century can be best summed up as It is not the religion that turns people off, it's the representatives.This is nothing New.There is no shortage of sell outs and traitors. We are awash in good-for-nothing sell out colored preachers.These stab in the back black ministers are growing in numbers across this country, They are a political and financial calculation to ally themselves with this most corrupt and unrighteous adminstrations These Knee- Grow preachers and Black Judas Goat Leaders are useless to black people.They dont serve a spiritual need and their actions are in direct opposition to the political will of the vast majority of black people. They only serve themselves. Even our enslaved ancestors knew the deal on the sell out Knee-Grow preachers and Judas Goat Black sell out leaders.In fact if Dr,King was here today he would have march on them.