Visual storyteller and keynote speaker Richard Haynes gave an inspirational, personal and heartfelt speech Monday morning at the annual celebration to honor the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at South Church in Portsmouth.
SeacoastNH.com article By Hadley Barndollar, Jan 21, 2019
PORTSMOUTH — Years ago, while teaching a college course on art, a student entered Richard Haynes’ classroom with “KKK” tattooed across her knuckles on one hand.
A few classes later, it had become “KKK” across all 10 knuckles. Then, a swastika on her forearm, and later, an Aryan Nations symbol on her chest.
Haynes, an African-American man, recalled saying to himself, “She hated me, but I loved her.” When the student failed his class, for lack of effort, he said, a dean asked Haynes if he wanted her to return to his class.
“I said, ‘Yes, put her back in my class,’” Haynes said. Then one day, it was just Haynes and the student left together in the classroom.
“My parents taught me to hate Negroes,” the student told Haynes. That night, Haynes went to a Barnes & Noble store and bought an “$85, softest leather you can ever imagine Bible.” And the next day he gave it to the student.
Haynes, currently director of admissions for diversity at the University of New Hampshire, shared his story Monday at the annual Seacoast NAACP celebration to honor the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at South Church. And its ending surprised much of the audience.
Haynes called up a colleague to read aloud a letter he received more than a year after he had that particular student in class.
“I wanted to let you know that day was the most powerful of my life, which resulted changing my way of living, a day at a time now,” the student wrote to Haynes. “I am sorry, as well. Because I was not the nicest person, as I was one who saw colors for colors and not people for people.”
The theme of Haynes’ keynote speech was, “Use me, Lord, use me.”
“I can’t help but to think when we think about Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela, great leaders of the 20th century, I can’t help but to believe each and every one must have said, ‘Use me, Lord, for your glory.’”
Haynes concluded with, “Love your neighbors as much as you love yourselves.”
Much of Monday’s event also paid tribute to the late Rev. Dr. Arthur Hilson, a beloved community member who led efforts to get Martin Luther King Jr. Day signed into law in New Hampshire. Hilson died Saturday after a battle with prostate cancer.
Of King, Exeter’s Red Brick Church Rev. Lillian Buckley said, “His life was to be used to carry the burdens of others.” He did not live long, she said, he did not live wealthy, but he lived for the cause of other people. Buckley thanked the members of law enforcement who attended Monday’s event.
The Rev. Robert Thompson, chair of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, was the morning’s master of ceremonies.
Angela Matthews, who serves on the BHTNH board, said the organization’s goal is to “change hearts and minds in the conversation about the real history of the United States and New Hampshire.” Beginning in February, they’ll launch their annual Winter Tea Talk series, addressing topics related to New Hampshire’s black history and African American culture.
Musician TJ Wheeler asked attendees not to forget that New Hampshire was the last state in the nation to formally recognize Martin Luther King Day. He performed many musical selections alongside Kent Allyn, Susie Burke and Dave Surette.
And though usually a soft-spoken leader, Rogers Johnson, president of the Seacoast NAACP, raised his voice Monday calling on the community to demand racial equality and inclusion within local school districts. He was direct in his comments, pointing specifically to “61 Locust Street in Dover,” the address for the Dover School District administration.
It was announced Friday that Dover High School teacher John Carver will remain employed. He is alleged to have assigned a history class project to create a jingle on the Reconstruction Era, resulting in an uninterrupted student performance a song that included the lyrics “KKK KKK, let’s kill all the blacks.” Carver was placed on paid leave after a video of the Nov. 30 incident was made public on social media, and he’s expected to return to work in the fall after going through training on race and bias.
“Yet no matter how much progress we think we have made, there is always some incident somewhere that pulls us back,” Johnson said. “There is always something to remind us about how far we still must go. This last year has been difficult. Just when you think we could not get worse, it does.”
Johnson said what is most troubling is when “the injury inflicted upon us comes from the very individual we trust to educate the most impressionable of us; our children.”
“Any action to promote racial disharmony in any school anywhere is an attack on both minority and majority school children everywhere,” he said. “Help us once and for all, once and for all, put an end to this hateful plague infesting educators.”
He urged attendees to contact their local schools and demand educators receive diversity training, and measures be put in place to “hold them accountable if they run afoul.” Earlier this month, the state’s Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion, which Johnson chairs, released diversity training in schools as a preliminary recommendation following a year’s worth of public listening sessions around the state.
“Demand that racial equality and inclusion be a practice everywhere,” Johnson said. “Go forth from this place and do right for the people of this community, the citizens of this state.”
