Mayor Zohran Mamdani and government and artistic leaders from across NYC united to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day January 19 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM.) The event was the city's largest public celebration of the civil rights trailblazer, and featured several performances across dance, music, and theatre to honor Dr. King's message.

The celebration kicked off with a keynote from Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, followed by a musical performance by The Fire Ensemble led by Troy Anthony, a solo dance performance by Khalia Campbell for Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, and appearances and remarks from New York state leaders including Senator Chuck Schumer, Governor Kathy Hochul, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Attorney General Letitia James, as well as BAM's interim CEO Tamara McCaw, BAM board chair Diane Max, and BAM Chief Experience & Impact Officer Coco Killingsworth (who also serves as a member of the Mayor’s Committee on Arts and Culture). 

A public reading of The Drum Major Instinct was also held, co-presented with Theater of War Productions. The live dramatic reading of Dr. King’s 1968 sermon featured performances by Tony winner Jeffrey Wright, Mamdani, James, Alvin Bragg, and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, with original music by Dr. Philip Woodmore and a choir made up of educators, activists, police officers, and members of the faith community. The event was followed by an audience discussion facilitated by Bryan Doerries.

Mayor Mamdani addressed the audience in a seven minute-long speech highlighting Dr. King's impact on New York City and his involvement in the community, and how Black New Yorkers still are disproportionately failed by city policies that do not serve the working class. 

"Dr. King knew this city well. He organized here, he preached here, he recovered here by the gifted doctors and nurses who provided him care at Harlem Hospital after an attempt on his life. I think often of the words he spoke here in April of 1967 when he addressed the congregation at Riverside Church in Manhattan: Dr King said, 'Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautiful struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great, shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Or will there be another message of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost?'" said Mamdani, whose breakthrough campaign success largely rode on advocating for a more affordable New York City. "When we look honestly at our city today, that question from Dr. King feels urgent, because while the city is wealthy beyond measure it is also deeply unequal. 

"Some New Yorkers sleep in penthouses, others sleep on the sidewalk below. We contend with the status quo that is somehow both broken and hard to break and we know that few feel the harshness of these failures as intimately as Black New Yorkers...It is Black residents who have to wait longer for buses that run too slow and cost too much, Black children that study in crowded classrooms, Black mothers who are nine times more likely to die of pregnancy related causes." Mamdani mentioned that a common criticism of his policies to increase affordability is the risk of driving out wealthy residents who do not want to "a little more in tax," to which Mamdani asks why there is so little focus on the exodus of Black New Yorkers in the face of an insurmountable cost of living. "Since 2010 to 2019, this city lost nearly 20 percent of its population of Black children and teenagers," he said.

In his closing remarks, Mamdani encouraged optimism, compassion, and generosity in the pursuit of continuing Dr. King's fight for equality through achieving financial and economic equality for all. "There is a beauty in people of all backgrounds all skin colors building a movement of solidarity where power belongs to the many—not simply the few, neighbors linking arms with neighbors, strangers extending a hand to strangers, New Yorkers fighting for New Yorkers they have never met and they will never meet, and there is a beauty in how we answer another question that Dr. King posed to us many decades ago: 'What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?' What we have in our hands is what Dr. King and so many others sacrificed for...now let our commitment to that cause never waver, no matter the cost."

See photos from the evening in the gallery below.

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BAM Celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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