On Thursday, Jan 13, Naval Station Everett held a celebration in honor of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Following the event, more than 40 sailors took part in a local Everett community parade and observance to commemorate the life of the slain civil rights leader.

The NAVSTA Everett Multicultural Committee (MCC) coordinated the Navy’s participation in both events.

“We all wanted to do something special for the occasion,” said Yeoman First Class Larry Cessna, MCC Chairman.

At least two hundred sailors and Navy civilians attended the event, which took place at the station’s Grand Vista ballroom.

NAVSTA Everett Commanding Officer, Captain Eddie Gardiner kicked off the event by calling on his own remembrance of Dr. King.

“I am an old guy who actually lived through some of this history,” he said. “I watched Dr. King on a black and white TV with a rotary dial tuner. Television brought the events directly into our home and our lives.”

Gardiner also stressed the need to understand “How far our country has come, and how far we have left to go.”

Guest speaker Reginald Gillins addressed the crowd. “We are here in support of a great cause that some say started in 1776, and our country today is involved in another great struggle in the war on terrorism.”

Gillins, a local community activist, asked the audience to reflect on King’s life and achievements.

“Today we look back through this window of history and a seed can begin to grow in our souls, a seed that will inspire all of us to start something-a seed of change to make the world of today a better place.”

During the event, audience members spoke with Gillins and shared experiences about the changes in their own lives that blossomed from Dr. King’s legacy. Bosun’s Mate First Class Thomas Smith, of NAVSTA Everett’s Port Operations department, spoke of his childhood.

“While my mother was working, my grandmother raised me, and she taught me about great men like Hosea Williams and Martin Luther King,” said Smith. “I could see for myself how their examples had changed people in our community and inspired our own local church to get out and make a difference.”

Another audience member, Aviation Electronics Mate Third Class Joshua Mauk recalled a deployment to the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain which changed his life.

“I realized my heart could be full of love for all people. It made me look at things differently,” he said.

After returning home on leave to Dallas, Texas, he met a woman at his local church.

“She was from Pakistan, but after the changes in my spirit, that didn’t matter at all to me anymore,” said Mauk. The couple married in September 2003.

Gillins closed with a rousing word-for-word recitation of Martin Luther King’s famous 1963 speech “I Have a Dream”.

Following the event, Ralph Jackson, site manager for the Station Training Support Department, said the observance was one of the best he’s attended. 

“I consider myself to be a child of the Civil Rights Movement,” said Jackson, who was raised in Alabama during the 1960s.  Some of his most powerful memories are of witnessing his family provide food and water to support civil rights workers in their historic march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.

“My mother told me, ‘Not everyone can march, but every