M artin L uther K ing J r .
Page 4
January 15, 2020
2020 special edition
Communities of Color Leader Fights for Progress
Marcus Mundy says
King’s message more
important than ever
b everly C orbell
T he P orTland o bserver
Editor’s Note: As we cele-
brate the birthday of Dr. Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr., the
Portland Observer invited
leaders of the African Amer-
ican community to reflect on
the relevance of his message
today. Marcus Mundy, presi-
dent of the Coalition of Com-
munities of Color, shared his
thoughts about the civil rights
leader:
Marcus Mundy was only 9
or 10 years old when Dr. Mar-
tin Luther King Jr. was assas-
sinated on April 4, 1968, but
his parents made sure he knew
what the great man stood for.
Mundy’s father was from Al-
abama and his mother was
from Louisiana, so they knew
first-hand the injustices that
King railed against.
“They knew of him, knew
by
PhoTo by
b everly C orbell /T he P orTland o bserver
Marcus Mundy of the Coalition of Communities of Color works to advance racial justice by
organizing collective, cross-culture allies. Pictured at his downtown office, Mundy says the
messages of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., America’s foremost civil rights leader, influenc-
es his life on a daily basis.
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of his issues and imbued in
us a sense of pride, of disci-
pline, of working hard, all the
things that he spoke about in
his messaging for our families
and our race, they taught us,”
Mundy said. “He was peers
with my parents. My dad is in
Tuskegee, (Alabama) and he
(King) did a lot of his work in
Montgomery, (Ala.).”
He said King’s pronounce-
ment for equality became
more significant to him as he
grew older and he internalized
King’s words to the point that
he now often thinks of some
of the civil rights leader’s
more memorable passages in
his day-to-day life.
“When you’re young, you
don’t get into it as much, but
over time you see the reso-
nance of his message, you
see how important it is,” he
said. “I’m talking now to city
leaders on a couple of civic
ideas and quoting him from
his letter from a Birmingham
Jail, about how “wait” almost
always means “never” and
it’s like these are things you
C onTinued on P age 9