SB pioneer honored for his civil rights contributions during MLK prayer breakfast
 

SB pioneer honored for his civil rights contributions during MLK prayer breakfast
Stephen Wall, Staff Writer
Article Created: 01/21/2008 01:09:11 PM PST

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Hardy Brown

SAN BERNARDINO -- As the nation commemorated the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Monday, a local pioneer was honored for his civil rights contributions to the community.
Hardy Brown, publisher of the Black Voice News, was recognized with the Gertrude Whetzel award for his long history of activism.

The award is named after the woman who played a big role in getting the Martin Luther King Jr. statue built outside City Hall.

Brown, 65, founded the Black Voice newspaper 35 years ago to provide news coverage of important issues in the black community.

At the 28th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Prayer Breakfast Monday, Brown's legacy was celebrated by political leaders who called him a role model.

Brown has used his newspaper to promote civic involvement, social justice and racial equality, speakers said at the event.

"He inspires us into action," Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter, D-Rialto, told about 400 people at the St. Paul Dorothy Inghram Center on San Bernardino's Westside. "He plants ideas into our minds. He informs us and moves us. Sometimes he flat out tells us what to do."

Brown, who suffers from a neuromuscular disorder related to Lou Gehrig's disease, sat in a motorized wheelchair as he was presented with the honor.

To the surprise of his wife, Cheryl Brown, who was not expected him to speak, he took the microphone and offered an inspirational message.

Brown urged the crowd to follow King's example and not sit on the sidelines waiting

for others to make change.
"Even though my muscles sometimes react in ways that my mind is not telling them to, I still fear no evil," Brown said to loud applause.

King was warned not to march and take a stand, but he decided to act and the country is a better place because of it, he said.

"Today, we have to keep on marching and we have to keep on talking," Brown said.

Earlier in the three-hour service, Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino, paid tribute to John Conyers, a Democratic congressman from Michigan.

After King's death in 1968, Conyers introduced the first bill in Congress to make King's birthday a national holiday.

It took 15 years to get the legislation passed, even though Democrats controlled both houses of Congress during that time, Baca noted. A Republican president, Ronald Reagan, finally signed the bill into law in 1983.

The event was capped by a fiery sermon by Larry Campbell, pastor of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church in San Bernardino.

"The time is always right to do right," Campbell said, urging the crowd to invest in the community by helping seniors, low-income people, HIV/AIDS victims and pregnant teens.

"Stand up and make a difference in our neighborhood, our country, our society and our world," Campbell said.

The prayer breakfast, sponsored by the Inland Empire Concerned African-American Churches, also honored educator Ray Culberson, philanthropist Don Nydam, homeless advocate Patricia Nickols and longtime educator Dorothy Inghram. Karen Bell and Mike Martinez of the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office and Mike Camber of the Public Defender's Office also received awards.

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