Despite a storm the night before, which dropped almost six inches of snow on Acton, and frigid winds Monday morning, January 20, there was a full house for the 23rd Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Community Breakfast, hosted by Na’aseh, Congregation Beth Elohim’s Social Action Committee. Na’aseh means “we will act’”in Hebrew. The committee’s focus is on racial justice, immigrant justice, environmental issues, food insecurity, and poverty.
Rabbi Braham David offered a welcome, noting that although the Jewish people have a long and proud history of working for the expansion of civil rights, any discussion of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King must be centered in the conversation about the Civil Rights Movement.
Next, Sarah Coletti, Chair of Na’aseh, offered introductions, including of the many local officials in attendance: recently elected Govenor’s Councillor Mara Dolan, Sen. Jamie Eldridge, Representatives Dan Sena and Simon Cataldo, Town Moderator Jo-Ann Berry, Acton Select Board members David Martin, Alissa Nicol, and Jim Snyder-Grant, Acton School Committee members Tori Campbell and Leela Ramachandran, as well as local faith leaders Pastor Willie Barnett of Great Road Church, Reverend Christine Schrade-Keddy of West Acton Baptist Church, Reverend Sean Witty from Harvard Congregational Church, and South Acton Congregational’s minister, Ross Allen.
Na’aseh Chair Sarah Coletti introduces the keynote speaker, Colette Phillips, as a “DEI pioneer.”
Coletti then introduced the 130 people in the room, and another 40 online, to the event’s keynote speaker, Colette Phillips. President and CEO of Colette Phillips Communications and Founder and President of Get Konnected!, Phillips proceeded with her talk entitled, “Bridging Communities: Reaffirming the Black-Jewish Alliance.”
Phillips relayed the story of her move from Antigua to Boston when she was only 17, to attend Emerson College. After studying journalism and publication, she returned to the island, and produced a television show called “Let’s Talk.” Later, she returned to Massachusetts, and now lives in the city of Brookline. She noted that “Fate brought me to Boston. Faith kept me here. I was called to the work.” Phillips’ work is connection.
She told attendees that she founded Get Konnected! to bring down cultural barriers and to create more inclusive workspaces. She urged the audience to be curious about other people, attend festivals, try ethnic foods, communicate, collaborate, and have courage to step out of their comfort zone. She emphasized that “People do business with people they know. DEI has got to be about being radically anti-exclusion.” She maintains that there is benefit for us all when everyone is included.
Phillips remarked that there is no better time for Blacks and Jews to coalesce, working together for civil rights due to the “tremendous anti-Semitism, tremendous anti-Black hate, and anti-immigrant [sentiment]” we are seeing now. She reminded the audience that the collaboration between the groups goes back 100 years, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (now known as the NAACP) having been founded by Blacks and Jews.
The meeting room was filled with attendees as Na’aseh’s Sarah Coletti facilitated a Q&A following Colette Phillip’s address.
Her message, and the answers she offered to questions from attendees after her talk, was primarily to offer grace and love. She suggested that grace was not the same as empathy or compassion, but more about the gift we give ourselves. Like King, she maintains that love is easier to give than hate, which King called “too great a burden to bear.” Phillips declared, “If I ruled the world, we wouldn’t have to discuss race any longer. Identity wouldn’t be important. Only humanity.”
Alissa Nicol is a member of the Acton Select Board, and a Community Events reporter for the Acton Exchange.
See more on the Martin Luther King Breakfast speeches in Matthew Liebman’s article in this same issue.