By Betsy Scheinbart
Helen Marshall, Queens’ first black borough president, hosted a multicultural celebration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday last Thursday at Jamaica’s 300-year-old Grace Episcopal Church.
Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, a southeast Queens native, made a surprise appearance at the event, which also featured a musical selection from a Korean church choir, a dance performance from a southeast Queens children’s group and a benediction from a local rabbi.
The Rev. Percival Brown, pastor of Grace Episcopal, welcomed the elected officials and 200 others who attended to join with the church congregation “as we celebrate our life in this community, celebrate your own life that it may reflect the dream that Martin Luther King had.”
Marshall, who succeeded Claire Shulman this year in the borough’s highest elected office, spoke about King’s challenge to Americans: To judge a person by the content of his character, not the color of his skin.
The borough president said King’s challenge is particularly crucial to the residents of Queens, one of the most diverse counties in the world.
“We have a bright future in a complex and exciting borough,” Marshall said. “Let’s make it work and most of all, let’s work together.”
Walcott, who was born in Cambria Heights and grew up in St. Albans, said he stopped by the church to “crash” the party and speak out against the shooting at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Manhattan, which occurred last week on King’s birthday.
The deputy mayor for policy said adults have a responsibility to tell young people: “Violence will not be tolerated in our society.”
Walcott encouraged the adults in the audience to spread King’s messages of non-violence and tolerance to their children.
The evening’s speeches were broken up by musical performances from St. John’s University Voices of Victory Choir and by the Elijah Men’s Choir of the Central Presbyterian Church in New Jersey, the fourth-largest Korean church in the United States.
State Supreme Court Judge Patricia Satterfield, who became the first black female judge in Queens when she was elected to the Civil Court in 1990, reflected on King’s life and his teachings in her keynote address.
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. expected us to think beyond our own self-interest,” Satterfield said. “He fought outside the box.”
Satterfield, a graduate of St. John’s University Law School who lives in Laurelton, said she never dreamed she would be the first female black judge in Queens or that she would hear a gospel choir from St. John’s University.
She also said she never dreamed “little” Kerri Edge, now 27, of Springfield Gardens, would have her own dance company.
Edge’s Kek.Da Children’s Dance Ensemble brought down the house as they danced through the aisles of the church, looking much like a group King might have led in a protest march in the 1950s or ‘60s.
Jasmine Pearson, 10, tap danced as the rest of her company recited King’s famous “I have a dream” speech. Nine-year-old Shannon Pennie concluded Kek.Da’s performance with a rendition of “Hero,” a song which Mariah Carey made famous.
Reach reporter Betsy Scheinbart by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 138.
