Reposted from the Montclair Times

Celebrating King's birthday, Montclair NAACP head urges residents to step up and serve

MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2012
LAST UPDATED: MONDAY JANUARY 16, 2012, 7:04 PM
BY LINDA MOSS STAFF WRITER
THE MONTCLAIR TIMES

Montclair residents should ask not what their town can do for them, but what they can do for their town, according to the homegrown president of the Montclair Chapter of the NAACP.

That was the essence of the message - reminiscent of President John F. Kennedy - that Thomas Reynolds delivered to a packed audience Monday at the 23rd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast. Reynolds received the Martin Luther King Scholarship Fund in 2002, and it helped foot the bill for his degree from the College of Architecture and Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

"I challenge you to reinvigorate the spirit of hope from 2008, and usher in a new era of service, because we have work to do," Reynolds said at the breakfast, citing King's lifelong mission. "Find in your hearts not just a cause you can rally around, but a movement you can be personally invested in."

Reynolds, the youngest head ever of Montclair's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, delivered his address at his alma mater, Montclair High School. His grandmother, Velma Johnson, drove up from her home in Delaware on Monday morning to be by his side.
A few months ago the Montclair NAACP reached out to groups to celebrate its 95th anniversary, and learned that there were nearly 100 organizations that call the township home.

"That is 100 organizations that I'm sure would love to hear from us ... I challenge you to find one organization, whether it is the Sickle Cell Association of New Jersey; Boy or Girls Scouts; Bike Walk Montclair or the Montclair NAACP, find what you can believe in with your heart," Reynolds said. "I challenge you to introduce your neighbors to Montclair service, especially if they are new to Montclair. I challenge you to make Montclair a town we can even more proud of."

The breakfast, held in the atrium of the school's George Inness Annex, had roughly 180 attendees.

With campaign season heating up for the May nonpartisan election for the Montclair Township Council, the breakfast's audience was awash with politicians and potential candidates.

The incumbents and township officials included Montclair Mayor Jerry Fried, 1st Ward Councilman Rich Murnick, 2nd Ward Councilman Cary Africk, 4th Ward Councilwoman Renée Baskerville, Councilman-At-Large Roger Terry, Township Manager Marc Dashield, Township Attorney Ira Karasick, Sandy Lang and Township Environmental Coordinator Russell Gray. Most of the current council members plan to run for re-election.
The breakfast audience also drew residents who have either requested petitions to run for office, or who are expected to run. Those included Bob Russo, Robert Jackson, Joe Kavesh, Chris Swenson and Harvey Susswein.

Montclair Schools Superintendent Dr. Frank Alvarez and the Board of Education were also present, including board president Shelly Lombard.

During his address Reynolds said that one of his favorite King sermons was about "unfulfilled dreams," and how God was pleased with King David even after he failed to build a big temple in the Lord's honor. Reynolds, noting that he had just finished his first year as president of the Montclair NAACP, said his "lofty ideal" to challenge the community to be a "model of education, social justice and volunteer development" was still incomplete.

According to Reynolds, "As long as we can always do better, that dream is unfinishable."

There is still plenty left to do, he said.

"If you don't believe there is world that needs to be done, then let's look at the facts," Reynolds said. "As long as detainees of the Newark prisons awaiting deportation are treated better than American citizens awaiting trial, we have work to do. As long as we have 5 percent of the world's people and 25 percent of the world's prisoners; as long as we spend $26,000 per student in Newark and $48,000 per prison detainer, we have work to do."

He continued, "As long as the unemployment and under-employment rates of black males are higher than the unemployment numbers of the Great Depression, we have work to do ... As long as a Presidential hopeful had the audacity to say the reason blacks are poor and in the ghetto is because we have no work ethic, we have work to do."

Stanley White, president of the MLK Scholarship Fund for 18 years, and Ronald Brown, a trustee, presided over the breakfast program. Reynolds said that there should be an effort to foster programs "on a more personal level," the way the scholarship works.

"One of the greatest things I remember about this scholarship over any other was the personal relationship I had with it," Reynolds said. "I would send my transcript to Stanley White every semester, and he wouldn't just make sure NJIT received a check. He would talk to me about what is going on in school. There was a personal development. He monitoring made this scholarship more crucial to my heart."

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