What unfolded at Tuesday’s Colorado Springs City Council meeting was not a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy. I don’t know what it was.

Embarrassing is the word I’ll go with.

An MLK proclamation is intended to center Black history, Black leadership, and the future of Black residents in Colorado Springs.

Instead, the event became a referendum on federal immigration enforcement and the recent shooting death of Renee Nicole Good, a White woman. Whatever the merits of the concerns raised about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, repurposing a Black-centered observance to spotlight something else erased the very community the proclamation was meant to honor.

Nine local faith leaders used the proclamation to consume the entire platform while a Black city council member who introduced the proclamation was barely acknowledged by those speakers. In addition, our Black Mayor wasn’t acknowledged or thanked by the speakers who appear to be in opposition to him regarding ICE. Never mind that he runs a municipality with limited powers – not a federal agency.

The Black chair of the MLK Legacy Committee was forced later to clarify that the speakers were not aligned with the committee’s vision – since they failed to confer with the MLK committee before turning their event into an unplanned protest.

And it was strange that this group of protesters at a MLK event had no Black clergy members.

Responses from City Council varied. Council member Dave Donelson became completely incensed and refused to continue participation in the event. Council member Gold praised the action saying that fiery speech was good.

Councilmember Roland Rainey was remarkably calm for being drastically slighted at the event he coordinated. So was our Mayor.

Reportedly several of the marginalizing speakers were from Council member Nancy Henjum’s church. I wish they had just waited a week till after the MLK holiday.

So, a well-meaning MLK event was hijacked by faith ministers in a way that detracted from the work of multiple local Black leaders. Which leads me to a question:  

Why, at MLK events, do some White liberals speak over Black leaders – somehow believing they are honoring Dr. King?

Part of the answer lies in misdirected allyship. Many genuinely want to stand on the side of justice. But when the desire to be seen eclipses the responsibility to listen everything goes wrong.

I encourage you to watch the video. All focus was shifted away from Black history, progress, and communities by White speakers to their own sense of moral supremacy.

Sometimes there is also a tendency by some White liberals to prioritize other systemic issues that feel pressing to them – like immigration policy. These are serious concerns.

But when protest eclipses conversations about local Black progress during a Black-centered observance, the message is clear (even if unintended): if you’re Black your story can wait. We (the White liberals) are most important.

That is not solidarity.

Another factor is platform amplification. MLK Day carries moral weight, media attention, and symbolic authority. For those who want to be heard, the temptation to use that platform – to speak in one’s own interest – is strong. Too strong.

It is stunning that these faith community speakers managed to marginalize the upcoming visit from MLK’s granddaughter Yolanda Renee King. That is important and was a planned highlight of the proclamation.

But the visit with Dr. King’s granddaughter and events on Sunday and Monday – didn’t make any of the headlines after this meeting. So truly little of the MLK Day proclamation addressed MLK events, Black history in Civil Rights, perspectives, or Black concerns.

Blackness was just the backdrop for these speakers (all White) to take the limelight for themselves.

This is not new. Dr. King was clear-eyed about the limits of some liberal goodwill. He warned that love without justice is not love at all. The Black community, he argued, needed justice.

We still do. Justice, in this context, would have meant centering Black leadership, not speaking over it. It also would have included demanding economic progress for Black communities, not just symbolic alignment.

What happened at City Council did racial harm. It erased and lowered Black voices, centered Whiteness, and sidelined local civil rights leadership – all while invoking Dr. King’s name. I don’t know what that was!

Let me try a different word – reprehensible.