Elaine Hardy was only 4 years old when her mother surprised her with an unusual instruction: Put on your best Sunday outfit and tidy up. Hardy, a little girl who understood routines, was confused. It wasn’t Sunday.
Only one other possibility made sense in her mind — an unscheduled, possibly painful visit to the doctor’s office. Was it time for a vaccination already? She felt anxious and a little frightened. Finally, she worked up the courage to ask her mother where they were going.
The answer stayed with her: We’re going to vote.
That moment — her mother’s insistence that voting be treated with the same seriousness and care as going to worship or safeguarding her health — became a defining lesson. It followed Hardy into adulthood and through a career focused on social justice, civic responsibility and community enrichment.
Today, Hardy serves as chair of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Mid-Michigan, one of the longest-running, continuously operating organizations of its kind in the country. Under her leadership, the commission continues a mission that is both celebratory and challenging: honoring King’s life while pushing the public toward the unfinished work of justice.
The commission will hold its annual celebration Monday, Jan. 19 in Lansing, Michigan. The event will mark the 41st anniversary of the commission’s luncheon, one of the nation’s largest events honoring King, and will also commemorate the 40th anniversary of the federal King holiday.
“For more than four decades, this celebration has brought people together to honor Dr. King’s legacy while challenging our community to live out his message,” Hardy says. “Marking both the 41st year of this event and the 40th anniversary of the federal holiday is a powerful reminder of how far we’ve come — and how much work remains.”
In an interview with Word In Black, Hardy reflected on the long road that made the holiday possible. She emphasized the role of Coretta Scott King and the significance of federal legislation passed in 1983. For Hardy, that history matters because it frames the holiday as a public commitment, not a ceremonial gesture.
Hardy believes the holiday should be treated as more than a day off or a moment of reflection. For the commission, it is a chance to educate the public and pass along the history of the civil rights movement to those who did not live through it. That urgency is strongest, she said, for young people who may know King’s most famous speeches but not the conditions he confronted or the discipline required to build a national movement.
The commission’s work extends beyond its luncheon. Its focus includes literacy, youth violence, hunger, mentoring, education and community enrichment. Hardy says those priorities are a continuation of King’s legacy — a way of addressing barriers that still limit opportunity and civic participation.
In addition to its celebration, the commission awards scholarships to graduating seniors in the metro Lansing area who show academic achievement, leadership and a deep understanding of King’s teachings. It also sponsors an essay competition for middle and high school students that asks them to consider how King’s message applies to their communities today.
King “was living in an authoritarian South under Jim Crow,” Hardy says. “We had no such thing as the Voting Rights Act, no such thing as the Civil Rights Act. … There was no such thing that would protect us from the state-sanctioned violence against Black and brown bodies. Yet he stood there and said, ‘Look, I think this is possible for us.’ That was audacious.”
Invitations to the annual celebration are extended to at least 1,600 of what the commission calls “our closest friends.” This year’s speaker has not yet been announced, but the commission has a tradition of bringing nationally recognized voices whose work reflects King’s call for justice and righteousness. Past speakers have included Dr. Bernice A. King, the late Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat; Andrew Young and Myrlie Evers-Williams.
“For probably a little over a decade, the Commission had really centered on bringing foot soldiers of the movement to our community,” Hardy says. But that approach is becoming harder to sustain. Time has narrowed the opportunity to hear directly from movement veterans, she said.
“Because we are 60, 70 years away from the earliest movements, we don’t have many of those foot soldiers still here with us,” Hardy says. “This year … we have been hearing this kind of resounding need for justice for everyone, to protect the ideals of freedom.”
As a result, “this year, our theme is, ‘Until justice will sound like water and righteousness like a mighty stream,’” she says. “You know, people credit Dr. King with that. [But] it actually came from… the Bible, from the book by the name of Amos.”
Hardy also sees the commission’s mission as extending the meaning of King’s life and ministry to young people who have not been taught that history. Some believed the era of racism had ended with the election of President Barack Obama — the nation’s first Black president — but Hardy says the country’s divisions make clear that assumption was premature.
“Until we really dismantle racism in our country — until we dismantle all the ‘isms’… we’re gonna always keep revisiting” battles that had already been won, Hardy says.
Even so, she says she remains hopeful about what communities can accomplish together.
“We recognize that when people come together around anything, there’s no stopping them,” she says. “As long as you can keep folks divided, then you can continue to keep yourself in power.”
King left behind more than speeches and symbolism, Hardy said. He left a blueprint.
”But we are the architects,” Hardy says. “We are the ones that need to build it. We have a lot of yet-unfinished work to do.”