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Tri-Valley community members were recognized for supporting racial equity and justice through their work at the 21st annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Fellowship Breakfast last month.
Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley, whose District 4 includes Pleasanton, was honored with an MLK Legacy Award at the Jan. 27 online event hosted by the Pleasanton Community of Character Collaborative, along with fellow award recipients Dublin High School student Denel McMahan and Interfaith Interconnect co-founder Ruth Gasten.
Though the breakfast was held virtually instead of in person like last year, attendees dined distantly that morning on bagged food items delivered the night before. An assortment of gifts including a copy of the book “The Day You Begin” by Jacqueline Woodson were also sent along with each meal.
The first line of the book — “There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you” — also refers to part of the event that featured small groups in breakout rooms, where each person could tell about a time when “there was no one like you in the room.”
Amador Valley High School alumnus Jonathan Epps — who graduated in 2019 as valedictorian from Morehouse College, where King attended — gave a 15-minute keynote speech, during which he compared how the country’s racial relations have both changed and remained the same since King was alive.
Also reflecting on growing up in Pleasanton, Epps said he and his sisters were set up “extremely well for our futures,” and that “we continue to benefit from the education we received there.”
However, “we were not saved from the racism and microaggressions that afflict all too many black and brown people in this country,” Epps added.
In closing remarks, Epps said, “Actualizing King’s beloved community or one rooted in love, justice and equality amongst all of us is going to require all of us — every single person in this call here today and beyond — to collectively punch above our weight.”
Currently a senior at Dublin High, where he is also president of the Black Student Union, McMahan was one of three individuals who received the Legacy Award from the collaborative.
McMahan gained local recognition this past year for his activism, including when he turned an online dispute with an older man about equity into a moment of learning.
Involved with both the Diablo Black Men’s Group and Tri-Valley for Black Lives, McMahan credited activists like King and Malcolm X with progress that has been made but said “there is so much work to be done.”
“That’s why I hope to be able to continue my activism through college and my adult life, because I believe that that’s what we need more of, given our political and social climate,” McMahan said.
Another honoree, Gasten, who fled Nazi Germany with her family in 1939, is a co-founder of Interfaith Interconnect, which includes more than 20 different Tri-Valley faith organizations. The diverse group was influenced by King’s quote, “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”
In accepting her award, Gasten said she was also struck by another quote of King’s: “Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of education.”
Miley also received the Legacy Award for his work starting the United Seniors of Oakland and Alameda County (USOAC) in 1986, which “empowers older adults to improve their quality of life.” He served as executive director for more than 20 years and then was elected board president in 2010.
