Charlie Baker reads a proclamation declaring April 27, the day the Legislature marked Martin Luther King’s 1965 address at the State House. Looking on is Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus Chairman Russell Holmes.
For former state Rep. Michael Haynes, 50 years has gone by like a blink of an eye. He remembers as clear as day the speech Martin Luther King Jr. delivered before a joint convention of the House and Senate on April 22, 1965, barely a month after the Selma to Montgomery march.
Monday, Haynes returned to the House chamber to deliver an invocation before House and Senate members, black elected officials, Gov. Charlie Baker and Massachusetts residents who came to commemorate the 50th anniversary of King’s speech. Seated in front was a special delegation of lawmakers from the 164th Session, who were present for the 1965 speech.
Back in ’65 Haynes, along with fellow black representatives Franklin Holgate and Royal Bolling Sr., were part of a delegation that brought King to the State House for a speech before a standing-room-only gathering of solons and activists.
“I still hear his words,” says Haynes, who also preached alongside King at the 12th Baptist Church while King was a PhD student at Boston University. “He left his mark here.”
Monday, Baker and House Speaker Robert DeLeo gave speeches. Members of the Massachusetts Legislative Black and Latino Caucus took turns reading portions of King’s 1965 address to the Legislature.
Majority Whip Byron Rushing reads a section of King’s speech.
That speech, in which King exhorted the legislators to embrace the spirit of racial justice, came at an opportune moment. King himself had led Boston activists in a march from Roxbury to the Boston Common, urging the Legislature to pass the Racial Imbalance Act, which ordered school districts to desegregate or risk losing state funding.
The legislature, then packed with young liberals, needed little prodding. It passed the Act, which took effect in August of 1965.
“Some of us needed more of a push than others,” recalled former state Rep. Paul Cavanaugh, who represented Medford and Everett.
“He inspired the legislature to be more aggressive,” said former Rep. David Tobin, who represented Jamaica Plain. “The legislature at that time was pro-civil rights. But he inspired us to be more active.”
Caucus members organized the commemoration of King’s 1965 address, taking turns reading sections from the speech.
The commemoration of the speech was an important milestone in the State House, said Rep. Byron Rushing.
“We had to get it in our current colleagues’ memories that this happened,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of them know.”
