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DAZE WORK: King of the day Saturday was Dayan Martinez
On its own, public speaking is certainly tough enough. Easily considered the No. 1 phobia for most of mankind.
But public speaking at an event in which the great orator Martin Luther King is the central figure? Oh, baby, no thank you very much.
Yet that’s the position a number of Greencastle folks found themselves in Saturday afternoon.
Now think about being 17 years old and admitting you have never spoken to a group as large as the 60 who assembled for the Heritage Wall dedication of a plaque commemorating Dr. King’s Sept. 5, 1960 address at Gobin Church.
That’s where Dayan Martinez found himself Saturday.
Charged with reading the farewell letter (the one that notes that democracy is not a state, it is an act) that John Lewis, the trail-blazing Georgia congressman, sent to the New York Times just days before his recent death, Martinez was more than equal to the task.
But few were equal to the calm, confident presence he cast over that group and the other speakers around him.
A first-generation American from a Colombian family, Martinez has grown up in Greencastle and admittedly “often felt alone” here as a gay teenager of color.
“We are separate as human beings,” Martinez said following his presentation of Lewis’ words, “but we are equal in human dignity.”
All people, he stressed, are worthy of equal treatment and due process under law.
“But time and time again in this country I have witnessed that due process being stripped away,” the Greencastle High School senior said before launching into a story that equally tugs the heart and sickens the stomach.
Many times, Martinez said with the poise of those three times his age, he has joined the group of peaceful protesters on the courthouse square, holding signs and chanting “Black lives matter.”
However, his voice choked with emotion as Martinez told of a car stopping on the square and the occupant looking him dead in the eye to say, “No ... they ... don’t.”
“Wait, I grew up here,” he recalls responding. “The color of my skin shouldn’t matter. You’re telling me my life doesn’t really matter?”
Tongue tied a time or two as he continued his remarks, Martinez nonetheless persevered to say, “as a young queer individual” he had to speak to the public.
But what’s coming out of Washington and the White House, Martinez said, “makes me fear that my life maybe does not matter.”
“We have to unite and lead this nation into being a more understanding state,” added the youngest member of Greencastle’s new Commission on Human Relations.
On more than one occasion, Martinez’s remarks elicited vocal encouragement from those perched on the little hillside in front of the Greencastle Masonic Temple.
But even before he spoke, new DePauw University President Lori White had jumped on the Dayan Martinez bandwagon.
She said she tried to talk him into attending DePauw next year but Martinez has said that after growing up in Greencastle, he wants to see the world.
DePauw, President White told him, will bring the world to him.
In her later remarks, White said that like Dr. King in his “Drum Major Instinct” sermon, we all need to lead the parade “in love and service to mankind.”
“Much as Dayan did today.”