A Martin Luther King exhibit for a troubled time comes to Wayne's library

There are many ways to disappear. One of the worst is to be everywhere.

As Martin Luther King is, today, 56 years after his death.

On his birthday month — Jan. 15 is his day — you'll be seeing his image, hearing "I Have a Dream" soundbites, listening to the usual pundits sing the usual praises. Much of it pro forma.

The promotion of his birthday to a national holiday, in 1983 (it was first celebrated, as such, in 1986), was a triumph — and in some ways a trap. Now that he was official, like George Washington, he could be taken for granted.

That's what Paterson historian Jimmy Richardson worries about — and why he put together an MLK exhibition, "Unfinished Business," that can be seen at the Wayne Public Library through the end of February.

Troubling times

He wants people to really think about King. Especially now — this year — with Black history under attack in many parts of the country, and the U.S. seemingly poised for a possible Civil War II.

"Look what's happening in Florida and Texas, where they're taking certain books and trying to rewrite history," said Richardson, author of "Slavery at the River's Edge."

"Saying slaves benefited from slavery — how could that be? If you're going to continue the legacy, you have to keep the story straight," he said. "That's the reason for this display."

Some 37 photos and documents, culled from the New Jersey Historical Society, the Newark Public Library and various newspapers and archives, capture King at the height of his career. He can be seen receiving the Nobel Prize, speaking at the 1963 March on Washington, calling out the Vietnam War at New York's Riverside Church — but also languishing inside Birmingham Jail, where he wrote his famous letter.

More: Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day in North Jersey: Parties, rallies and days of service

"It's all part of the legacy," said Richardson, a Hillside resident. "Every one of these photographs has a story of its own."

Name change

There are two Paterson street signs, extras gifted by the city, that were left over from years when streets were renamed in honor of the civil rights movement. "Dr. Martin Luther King Way," aka Broadway, was rechristened in 1982; "Freedom Boulevard," aka Auburn Street, got its new handle in 2013, on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

There is also a copy of a 1964 letter, written by King to the late Rabbi Israel Dresner of Wayne — himself a great civil rights leader — asking him and other clergy for assistance after his arrest in St. Augustine, Fla.

It's an important letter, Richardson said — because it tells us something about King's character.

"He's asking help outside the normal channels that an African American might go to," Richardson said. "He's asking for help outside the Black ministry. The Black community could be very suspicious of white people. 'What do they want? Why are they here?' King never had that kind of a heart. If you need help, he felt, you reach out and ask for it. And what better way than to ask people outside your realm, to help you in a cause that's universal?"

Next-door neighbors

That letter, and King's history in North Jersey, was part of the reason Richardson specifically wanted to stage his exhibit in Wayne — just 6 miles west of Paterson, where King made a historic speech on March 27. It was his second-to-last public speech before his assassination on April 4, 1968.

With this show, Richardson wanted to remind viewers of a time when urban Paterson and suburban Wayne were allies in the battle for civil rights — when a Rabbi Dresner (of Wayne's Temple Beth Tikvah) could march side-by-side with Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young and other members of the Jewish, Catholic and Protestant clergy, raise their voices with them and be arrested with them.

Today, Richardson fears, too few people in Wayne know anything of this history. Fewer know that Martin Luther King once spoke in their backyards.

"You would think, with somebody that big, that people would have heard he came to Paterson at some point, even if they don't know the details," he said "But when you get to a certain age, outside of Paterson they don't know at all. They have no idea what you're talking about."

He has pointedly included several pictures of King during his March 27 Paterson visit, when he spoke at the Community Baptist Church of Love, on what was then Auburn Street in the 4th Ward.

Not that Richardson himself needs photos to remember.

The big day

He was living across the street — age 16 at the time. "There were 2,000 people in the street," he recalled. "I didn't hear him, but I saw him when they ushered him into the church, through a side entrance. He didn't go through the front. I stood on the porch of my house, directly across the street from the church. I had a ringside seat."

Richardson did not actually get in to see King. The church, jammed to capacity, could hold only 270.

It's one of his regrets — just as he regrets passing up, as an 11-year-old, a chance to join the 1963 March on Washington. "My grandmother asked me, and I said no," he recalled. "I was just a kid."

But now, at age 72, he is of the last generation for whom the civil rights era is a living memory. That's another reason for the exhibit. To testify. To pass on what he knows to today's young people. Now more than ever, he said, we all need to remember.

"The fight is still the same," he said. "But how we got here is not being told in its entirety. The people who were the founding members of the movement, they've either passed away or moved on. The legacy of what they did is being diluted. The truth is in the details."

If you go...

"Unfinished Business," an exhibit at the Wayne Public Library, 461 Valley Road, Wayne, through Feb. 29. (973) 694-4272

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Martin Luther King returns to North Jersey, via photo exhibit