The Rev. Will Mebane, rector of Saint Barnabas Memorial Episcopal Church in Falmouth, said the conviction Tuesday of former police officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd was no cause for celebration.
“I don’t feel like celebrating, he said. I don’t feel like cheering. I’m very sad. I, of course, continue to be sad not only for the lynching of George Floyd, but of Daunte Wright, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and the whole list of others who were killed and justice was not served.”
Black and Brown men and women are just as much at risk after the verdict as they were before, Mebane said. The verdict does not end the systemic racism that permeates through the country’s law enforcement agencies, he said.
The annual celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that usually fills the center of Wellfleet has no boundaries this year.
Organizers from the artpeacemakers group that has for 19 years presented the WalKING Meditation and related activities had talked from the start about potentially spreading out their commemoration of the holiday that honors King’s life. Did they want, Harriet Korim says, to “share the recipe for a non-religious observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, focusing on creativity and family-friendliness, far and wide”?
For 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic made the decision for them.
While Candace Perry says she and other organizers are disappointed that safety concerns won’t allow them to gather people together as usual, “we are planning many other activities.” Korim notes in a phone interview that “for artists, limitations are often the spark of new ideas.”