MANKATO — Mankato West High School teacher Matt Moore didn’t expect to be one of the stars featured in the local historical film about Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1961 visit to the city.
But his longtime fascination with King’s visit and three Mankato speeches on Nov. 12 that year contributed deeply.
Like many others who attended the premiere of “MLK 11.12.61,” Moore was originally surprised about how little was known about King’s historic visit to a Midwestern town amidst the heart of the country’s racial tension.
“When I first heard from someone about King’s visit then, I had to say, ‘What are you talking about?’ I didn’t know.”
So Moore hit the Minnesota State University libraries and found community and college archives had only recently been digitized. So, in 2011, Moore’s deep dive into King’s Mankato visit — two speeches at Centenary Methodist Church and one at then Mankato High School, now West.
Moore’s research, and the work of writer and director Ryan Sturgis of True Facade Pictures in Mankato, became a critical part of the effort, according to Jameel Haque, director of MSU’s Kessel Peace Institute. Haque also served as executive producer of the film.
The 50-minute film was part of the Kessel Peace Institute and MSU’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration, presented in Ostrander Auditorium before some 125 people. A six-person panel and brief discussion followed the film, but the film’s message presented a message which still rings true today, said Haque and others.
The local King film, according to Hague, “serves to remind us to value the things that we fight for.”
Writer and director Sturgis said church officials hoped to bring King to Mankato and expand his message of civil rights and the battle against racism. Twice invited before he accepted a third invitation, King arrived at Mankato Airport in the morning, spoke twice in the morning at the church, then in the afternoon, before heading back to Minneapolis and back home to Georgia.
Two bodyguards followed King through the day, who had been receiving death threats since a 1956 bombing of his home. Seven years later, King would be assassinated in Memphis.
Bukata Hayes, former director of the Greater Mankato Diversity Council and longtime Mankato resident, noted the stark contrast to the Washington D.C. inaugural of President Donald Trump, defining it as “the collision on the calendar.” The hard work remains during these polarized times, he noted.
“But we need to acknowledge that complexity,” Hayes said.
Moore cited that King’s speeches that day focused on three major points, ones that hold true today, as well: that we’re in an interconnected world, that society must confront white supremacy, and that citizens should be encouraged to engage in creative protests.
“And they’re still relevant today,” Moore said.
Students at Mankato West worked alongside Moore’s instructions over the past few years, creating a King mural on the wall at West and finally helping to erect a commemorative marker.
Sally Burdick, who was a 19-year-old college student at the time, was among locals who attended one of King’s speeches at the church. Sitting just a few pews back, she was unfamiliar with King’s growing presence in the Civil Rights Movement.
“We didn’t know we were in the presence of greatness at the time,” Burdick said.
The film didn’t shy away from the issues of racism, nor did it stay silent on the political polarization now over 60 years later.
Stacy Wells, former communications director at Mankato Public Schools and now a diversity consultant, was featured broadly in the film, talking about statistics, the housing and educational inequities facing Blacks today, and that “it is about a system that is really stacked against them.”
“We still have these persistent gaps,” Wells stressed.
As many Gen Z college students attended the film’s showing and discussion, veteran MSU official Henry Morris, now vice president of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, encouraged them to keep working for social justice on several fronts. And he said Mankato remains positioned to keep moving forward, as King saw in 1961.
“Mankato at that time was in the right place,” Morris said.