Sandoval County Commission honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Sandoval County Commission honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Jan 10 meeting with a proclamation observing Jan. 15 as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

District 2 Commissioner Jay Block sponsored the resolution honoring King and invited former state Rep. Jane Powdrell-Culbert to speak about how King affected her life.

“This is a special time of the year to honor the life and legacy and to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, and I think one of the quotes that sticks out to me with Dr. King, ‘The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in convenience, where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.’ And I think that really encapsulates Dr. King’s life, where he put his family in his life obviously at risk,” Block said. “He put others over his life and those that were in the struggle of sitting at lunch counters and crossing bridges and fighting for equal rights in this country. I think it is proper and appropriate that we have celebrated this since President Reagan signed the holiday back in 1986 so Dr. King’s life and legacy will live on. I think today with race relations, you look at the polling, it’s not great. I think Dr. King would be disappointed on where we are, but he’d also be extremely happy on how far we’ve come. But it’s not far enough.”

Block then read the proclamation.

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged all people in our country to participate in the never-ending work of building a more perfect union, and said, ‘so even though we face a difficulty for today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live under the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.’ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Believed railing the power of individual action, in combination with collective hope to create a brighter future,” Block added.

Powdrell-Culbert gave a moving, emotional speech that included a story of her parents pulling over to the side of the road to listen to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in the summer of 1963 and how his words remain imprinted in her heart and mind.

Powdrell-Culbert, a Republican representative from Corrales, was about 13 at the time. Her family was on a road trip and stopped to eat in Texas after listening to the speech.

“When we go on vacation, you cannot go in the front door. We had to go around the back door to go in the cafe and we had to sit eat at this counter. And we were insulted because we didn’t know any better because we were raised here in New Mexico,” Powdrell-Culbert said. “So you know race relations have come a mighty long ways, but it’s still got a long ways to go. But I think from my generation of folks, that we were truly blessed because of this man, and then he died by our blessing. And for me to say our blessing, you’d have to be African-American to really understand how much that really means.”

Powdrell-Culbert said growing up in New Mexico during the Civil Rights Movement was different than in other parts of America.

“My dad had worked in all these different places here in New Mexico, because he was following work to make sure that me and my brothers were able to be successful. And we’ve done a pretty good job of that, along with so many other families who grew up during the Civil Rights Movement,” Powdrell-Culbert said. “If you were New Mexican, born and raised here, New Mexican and an African American, because our communities have always been so racially mixed, you didn’t quite understand at the time what it meant. But now as we’ve gotten older, we’re so grateful to have had that era and to have been able to achieve and do things that, probably had that not happened, we would not have been able to do and achieve. And so I want to say to you all thank you. We’ve come a long ways, but we still got a way to go.”