Penn Medicine recognized Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a paid health system holiday for the first time this year, though Pennsylvania Hospital has long had a tradition of honoring Dr. King’s life and legacy with a beautiful celebration. While the holiday looked different this year due to COVID-19, the Cultural and Community Awareness Council (CCAC) was still able to create a special celebration. The council — led by chair Michael Altman, a nursing education coordinator, and executive sponsor Bonita Ball, MSN RN, NE-BC, CCRN-K, nurse manager of 4 Widener — put together a virtual program (available to watch on the PAH Intranet) featuring photos and video clips of staff describing what Dr. King’s vision of justice and unity means to them and sharing quotes that inspire them. Anesthesia technician Tracy King also took the virtual stage with an uplifting performance of “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow.”
Keynote speaker and chaplain Rev. Brian Dunlop gave a moving speech that explored the disproportionate impact of COVID on Black, Latino, and Native communities, referenced the nation’s ongoing political and cultural strife, and invoked the profound words of Dr. King and fellow civil rights leaders John Lewis and C.T. Vivian. In his unflinching yet hopeful address, Dunlop emphasized that in order to make Dr. King’s dream of an equal society a reality, we all must break from our comfortable routines and fight for justice together.
“While so many are content to celebrate the rhetorical flourishes and lauded imagery of the dream, too few recall how Dr. King confronted us with piercing insight into our systemic immorality,” Dunlop said. “The devastating and outsized impact of COVID-19 on communities of color has certainly shocked us into a heightened awareness… But it’s not so much the power of the virus that has devastated us as much as it is the litany of systemic illnesses that have undermined us and that plagued our society long before the discovery of this latest viral mutation.”
“But we must hold the line,” he continued. “Together, by the power of the same spirit that energized Dr. King’s faith while living, we must continue to work toward the vision he gave us before dying.”
In recognition of the holiday’s emphasis on action and service, the CCAC also hosted a month-long virtual food drive with Philabundance. Generous staff shopped for highly requested food items and made monetary donations, raising more than $9,500 to feed hungry individuals and families across the region.
“Dr. King reminded us, ‘Why should there be hunger and deprivation in any land, in any city, at any table, when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life?’” Altman said. “In holding this food drive, we wanted to honor his legacy by making a meaningful impact on the lives of Philadelphians facing food insecurity.”