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For Shokare Nakpodia, language is everything. Not just the literal words we speak, but also the definitions and beliefs we associate with every utterance. “People underestimate the power of language,” says Nakpodia, founder of DreamWeek San Antonio, which takes place Jan. 8-19. “A lot of our fighting is because of a lack of communication.”

The Value of Words

The idea that language matters is something Nakpodia first began pondering while a cab driver. A Nigeria native, Nakpodia moved to New York City following college in the 1990s with the hopes of becoming a writer. He thought driving would allow him to earn money while still leaving time to hone his craft. Nakpodia’s career eventually led elsewhere (he’s now creative director of The Mighty Group, a marketing and design firm), but the lessons he learned in the driver’s seat stuck. “That was the first time really since becoming an adult that I’d met a diverse group of people,” he says. “I listened a lot—some people’s framework came from politics, religion, a self-imposed morality or business but within all of this was the actual language (they used).” Nakpodia continued to study the origins of words in English, Hebrew and other languages. Then when brainstorming in San Antonio years later with other community leaders, he says it was this idea of language that helped birth DreamWeek.

Brokering Peace

San Antonio already had established itself as home to one of the largest MLK marches in the country. However, Nakpodia says, there wasn’t a specific event that perpetuated MLK’s vision. DreamWeek is meant to do just that. The now 12-day summit, which started in 2013, aims to foster genuine conversation about the very kinds of issues MLK cared about. “Where would his vision lie today?” Nakpodia asks. Instead of waiting for a shooting to talk about gun control or for an election to talk about immigration, Nakpodia proposes we talk now, just like MLK would have. At panels, town halls and other events throughout DreamWeek, Nakpodia hopes to hear people sharing ideas and realizing that their definitions of words—from peace to God—impact how they relate to the world.

Building Dreamers

The idea of a summit where everyone talks about big issues wasn’t one Nakpodia was sure others would latch onto. But DreamWeek has done nothing but grow. This year, more than 100 events are planned, including a speech by Martin Luther King III. The summit won’t solve the world’s problems. However, Nakpodia says, it will foster progress. “Can San Antonio become a Geneva-styled destination where people can come to resolve conflict in a peaceful manner? Yes,” he says.

Fact File
Years in San Antonio: 14
Hometown: Lagos, Nigeria
Day job: Founding partner and creative director of The Mighty Group
Get involved: dreamweek.org

Andi Rodriguez
DreamWeek summit will help bridge barriers and strengthen SA community

SAN ANTONIO — Mark your calendars for a special event that combines cocktails and food.

It’s called the Taste the Dream Gala. The second annual event celebrates diversity through food with an open-bar cocktail reception, followed by food tastings. There will also be live music, dancing and a raffle.

The event takes place Saturday, January 16 at the Institute of Texans Cultures. Taste the Dream Gala is an official Dreamweek event.

To buy your ticket, CLICK HERE.

Year after year, San Antonio’s Eastside hosts one of the largest Martin Luther King, Jr. Marches in the country. Brandon Logan, who was appointed to chair the City’s MLK, Jr. Commission this summer, wants San Antonio to take it to the next level and have the largest celebration as a whole. Between the Commission’s new King Week and the DreamWeek summit, now in its fourth year, the Alamo City is well on its way.

Early and mid-January events in 2016 will bring powerful speakers with strong ties to the civil rights movement to San Antonio, including Peggy Wallace Kennedy, daughter of former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace; Martin Luther King III, civil rights activist and the Reverend’s eldest son; and Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland.

“Even though we have a smaller African-American population here, the strength is really in the numbers of all the different cultures and all the different ethnic groups and generations that come support the march,” Logan said in an interview.

More than 100,000 people are expected to turn out for the 2016 MLK March on Monday, Jan. 18. Click here for time and route details.

San Antonio Martin Luther King Jr. Commission Chair Brandon Logan outside the Carver Community Cultural Center. Photo by Scott Ball.San Antonio Martin Luther King Jr. Commission Chair Brandon Logan stands outside the Carver Community Cultural Center. Photo by Scott Ball.
All together, the two approaches to commemorating King’s life and work represent an impressive lineup of events, several of which are cross-promoted by the two groups.

As the first Millennial chair of the MLK Jr. Commission, Logan, 31, has challenged himself to breathe new energy into the annual celebration.

Reverend Loyace Fredrick “L.F.” Lacy. Image courtesy of the Logan Family. Reverend Loyace Fredrick “L.F.” Lacy. Image courtesy of the Logan Family.
“My grandfather (Reverend Loyace Fredrick “L.F.” Lacy) was a civil rights leader in Alabama,” Logan said. “But not everyone has a connection to civil rights, and if you’re part of my generation or the younger generations, you were not directly involved in the civil rights movement. As a young commissioner, my objective is to make sure that there is a successful knowledge transfer from that era to our era.”

Logan, a native San Antonian, is president of SRG Athletics and co-founder of its nonprofit arm, SRG Force Sports, which uses athletic programming to boost opportunities and achievements for children of low-income families. He has actively served on multiple local boards and organizations, including the SAISD Foundation, Alamo City Black Chamber of Commerce, Harvey E. Najim Family Foundation, among others. His work in the business and community service worlds has earned him several awards and recognitions.

Shortly after he was appointed as chair by Honorary Commission Chair and Councilman Alan Warrick II (D2) in August, Logan replaced most of the sitting commissioners.

“We wanted to make certain that our leadership team, in terms of Commission members, was reflective to all parts of San Antonio and not just one sliver of the Eastside,” he said. “I had to make some tough decisions on who I wanted at the table because I wanted to make certain that as we roll out this brand of MLK Commission that we had greater connection points.”

Logan has put a greater focus on the Commission’s scholarship programming. All but two events on the Commission’s calendar are free.

“All of the events are multicultural, multigenerational, and multiethnic,” Logan said, and focus on four pillars: educational advancement, economic opportunities, cultural diversity, and community service, tying into this year’s theme: “Uniting Communities to Advance Humanity.”

“The goal is to create substantive conversations about the evolution of civil rights,” he said.

Fees from the Saturday Jan. 16 MLK, Jr. Birthday Celebration at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and the Sunday Jan. 17 Gospel Choir Extravaganza will help fund the Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Program. This year, a 2015 Nissan Altima will be raffled off for scholarship funding, too. Between these sources and corporate contributions, Logan hopes to raise more than $100,000 in scholarships. Typically, the Commission raises $40,000 in a year.

Reaching even higher, Brandon has calls out to local universities, challenging leadership to start $100,000, four-year scholarship programs in honor of MLK.

“If we have more than 100,000 people attending the march every year,” he said. “We should be able to raise more (than $40,000).”

The Commission also is looking to build greater community support, starting with its Distinguished Lecture Series. On Thursday, Jan. 28, singer-songwriter Chaka Khan will speak at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, and on Thursday, Feb. 11, LeVar Burton, of “Reading Rainbow” and “Star Trek” fame, will make an appearance at St. Phillip’s College.

DREAMWEEK: JAN. 8-19

Founding Partner and Creative Director of The MightyGroup and Dream Week President and Co-founder San Antonio Shokare Nikori Nakpodia.Founding Partner and Creative Director of The MightyGroup and DreamWeek President and Co-founder San Antonio Shokare Nikori Nakpodia. Photo by Sarah Brooke Lyons/1005 Faces.
While King Week is purely a celebration of the work and legacy of the late Rev. Martin Luther King, the DreamWeek calendar, operated by DreamVoice LLC, is taking an increasingly broader approach to equality, promoting events focused on LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, religious freedom and tolerance, and general quality of life in San Antonio.

Born in Nigeria, Shokare Nakpodia moved to San Antonio more than 12 years ago after stints in London and New York. He founded DreamWeek in 2013 as a platform for local organizations to plan and share events during the 12-day summit that “promote an exchange of ideas on universal issues facing our multi-cultural communities.”

It’s an ambitious undertaking. There will be more than 150 events on the calendar, from Restorative Yoga classes to a talk on “Men Against Violence Against Women” to the Music Unites concert to discussions to art openings, mixers and more.

Community wellness and peace is the overarching theme, but all of the events tie back, directly or indirectly, to “advancing and modernizing” MLK’s Dream.

“The subject matter has become a little bit more serious, especially because of the year we’ve had,” Nakpodia said, pointing to headlines involving the recent Paris terror attacks, a backlash against Muslims, the Syrian refugee crisis, and continuing social polarization over marriage equality and reproductive rights.

He proposes that many headlines could be avoided by having tough, thoughtful conversations about divisive issues before people lose their lives or livelihoods. Ultimately, Nakpodia sees the conversations taking place during DreamWeek as templates for national and international dialogue.

“The first three years were about branding and establishing DreamWeek. The next three are about trying to get (state, national, and global leaders) to come over and start to have healthy debates, presentations, and conversations about local issues,” he said. “It’s a huge deal that Martin Luther King III chose San Antonio as the place to be.”

While inspired by King’s life and legacy, DreamWeek is also influenced by Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and other civil rights leaders. The arts play a large role in the summit’s success as several gallery openings and art museums regularly host events.

This year, Sarah Brooke Lyons will launch her “1005 Faces” book on Sunday, Jan. 10, the culmination of several years of portraiture for DreamWeek.

“(1005 Faces) really represents what DreamWeek is about,” he said. “All those faces and what they’re saying … it shows you how diverse we are.”

DreamWeek closes out with the DreamVoice Freedom Party on Tuesday, Jan. 19 at the Southwest School of Art.

CORRECTION: After the original version of this article was published, CouncilmanAlan Warrick (D2) informed the Rivard Report that organizers decided to combine all the events of King Week into DreamWeek. After further interviews (and the 2015 holidays), Warrick and MLK Commission Chair Brandon Logan clarified that there is still a “King Week” calendar of events. Warrick added that next year, there will be more coordination between DreamWeek and MLK Commission event organizers.

*Top image: “Let Freedom Ring” was created by Amber Medina, a 14-year-old student at the Healy-Murphy Center. She was the winner of the MLK Commission’s first art contest. “In a world of chaos and social injustice, in a world of inequalities where not all lives matter, my art titled ‘Let Freedom Ring,’ is a call to all to be on fire for freedom and justice for all,” Medina said.

01/20/2015

Photos by Rick Canfield

As retail giants promote sales and corporate-sponsored Martin Luther King Jr., Day events kick off nationwide, community organizations and social justice groups in San Antonio want to take back King’s dream, urging elected officials and companies to put his vision of equality and basic civil rights into practice through policies that give everyone a fair shot.

Their concerns are echoed nationwide, as activists and community groups call attention to the deep-seated racial injustice the country is still grappling with, most recently amplified by the high-profile killings of unarmed black men Michael Brown and Eric Garner by white police officers.

“I think a lot of times, we have a belief but it comes to putting it into practice, that belief flies out the window,” said Oliver Hill, president of the San Antonio chapter of the NAACP, the country’s oldest black civil rights group, adding that King’s work extends beyond rights for the African American community, but also for anyone who is marginalized and without a voice.

For 25 years, San Antonio has hosted a nearly three-mile long MLK Jr. march to commemorate Dr. King’s life and legacy. For years, the city boasted that the event drew the largest crowd of any march in the country, though recently, organizers have called it one of the largest.

In 2014, city officials estimated that 150,000 to 175,000 people marched — numbers that may sound exceedingly high, but considering San Antonio’s history with civil rights activism and large minority communities, organizers aren’t surprised.

Leading up to the march, San Antonio hosts the 12-day “DreamWeek,” a series of dozens of community and cultural events around town such as lectures, summits and music shows, meant to honor the influence and legacy of the civil rights leader.

“We’ve done this for (25) years,” said Bishop David Copeland, who serves as chairman of the MLK Jr., Commission, the city-county volunteer organization that coordinates the march. “We are a community that knows how to come together at certain moments.”

Community leaders hope, though, that the high attendance is not in vain. While it’s important to celebrate King’s vision on this day every year, Hills wants to make sure companies and participants are doing it for the right reasons rather than a promotional opportunity or “just for show,” he said.

“What have they done for the community?” he reflected. “It just makes me wonder if there isn’t a way that we all collectively ask what we can do to improve conditions for people that are not well off, and then at the same time, ask each company to look within their own and ask what they are doing to ensure that people are able to move up?”

Sponsors run the gamut, from groups like the AFL-CIO and community colleges to H-E-B and Valero. Local social justice groups such as the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and Southwest Workers Union question the heavy corporate presence at the city’s MLK Day celebrations.

Though Javier Flores with the Commission said marchers line up on a first come, first served basis, Diana Lopez with SWU and Itza Carbajal with Esperanza remember politicians and corporate sponsors leading last year’s march, a detail they see as being counterintuitive to the social justice and grassroots nature of Dr. King’s movement back in the 1950s and 1960s. These are the exact individuals and entities contributing, or not fully addressing, concentrated poverty on San Antonio’s east and west sides and gentrification, to make a few.

A 2014 study by the Martin Prosperity Institute also found that income segregation is highest in San Antonio among other major U.S. metropolitan areas, including New York, Houston and Washington D.C.

“It’s a kick in the face when it comes to really addressing those issues,” Lopez said. “The one day that they talk about honoring civil rights and the work that happened during that time just happens doing those few hours and for the rest of the year it’s being ignored.”

Copeland said the key to fully achieving King’s dream is continued community dialogue. He said the MLK Jr., Commission wants to host other events throughout the year to maintain the conversation, not just about Dr. King’s work and legacy but also about today’s systems and policies that often prioritize money and business before human needs.

“What tends to happen is that people go back to their various silos and they continue to do what is easy for them and make the assumption that just about everybody has the same as they do,” Copeland said. “There are some that come to the march on a bus, assemble and march for 2.5 miles, and get back on the bus and go to work. Whether that solves anything, I’m not sure. It would be my hope that in the future we will have a meaningful discussion about our laws.”

SAN ANTONIO – The Second Baptist Church sports complex hosted a community event Thursday night focusing on community relations with law enforcement. The event was inspired by high-profile incidents across the country as well as some in San Antonio.

“San Antonio is not immune from individuals across this community who are upset with law enforcement officials with the way they handle their jobs,” said James Myart, chief operating officer of Acquiring Leaders of Tomorrow Today, Inc., which helped organize the event. “By and large, police officers are good people, but there are some who routinely and unconstitutionally violate the law and break the civil rights and civil liberties of individuals.”

The group planned to split up into ten different committees focusing on certain issues including police abuse, racial profiling and civil rights and civil liberties.

“It’s an educational effort. It’s a effort to educate young people how to handle police stops, how to not become victims of police abuse,” said Myart.

At the conclusion of the night, each committee planned to come up with three recommendations to take to city and law enforcement leaders, who declined invitations to attend.

“I was under the impression that the San Antonio Police Department was interested in sitting down with the community. I don’t think that’s the case now,” said Myart. “I think they think, ‘We’ll let them make some noise and it’ll go away.’ But we are determined to make this work and to make our voices known.”

San Antonio street musicians R.E.A.L MusIQ are known for rapping with a positive message. They’re taking part in DreamWeek 2015 with a performance during the MLK March on Monday, January 19, and at the DW Freedom party on Tuesday, January 20.

DreamWeek will celebrate diversity through food with the inaugural Taste the Dream Gala on Saturday, January 17 at 6 p.m. inside the Institute of Texan Cultures, 801 E Cesar Chavez. The event will steer away from stuff gala-ness and instead feature food stations manned by local chefs including Johnny Hernandez (La Gloria, True Flavors, The Fruteria, El Machito); David Page (featured on Spike’s Frankenfood for his innovative Vietnamese-Nawlins po’boy); and Charassri Saeng-On of Tong’s Thai.

Other featured eateries include Sweet Yams, Ma Harper’s Creole Kitchen and Chef Don’s Catering. The evening will kick-off with an open bar followed by a free-flowing food stations. Tickets, $100, can be reserved at (210) 248-9178 or by emailing info@sagesanantonio.org.

01/10/2015

Photos by Felisia Isom