“Where do we go from here? Chaos or community?”

This was the question on Rep. Jennifer McClellan’s mind last year as she attended Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration. It was also a question she posed to the hundreds gathered last Friday for Virginia Union University’s 48th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Community Leaders Celebration. 

In McClellan’s view, the hours after the inauguration showed the Trump administration choosing chaos and made clear the response she felt was necessary for herself and others. 

“We better fight now like we’ve never fought before, because if we don’t, we will mourn not only Dr. King’s dream, but we will mourn the power of government deriving from the people,” McClellan said. 

 “Stay focused on community.” 

Federal, state and local leaders at the event cautioned attendees against using the celebration as a brief acknowledgment of the need for change. Instead, they urged people to follow King’s example by taking meaningful, consistent action and serving their communities. 

“We must not come to this occasion simply to celebrate the aspirational but to be honest, up front with what we are facing in this moment,” VUU Board Chair Franklyn Richardson said. 

The speakers’ calls for action came with recommendations and promises those gathered could or would do to continue King’s work. Incoming Gov. Abigail Spanberger, Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi and Attorney General Jay Jones spoke of the responsibility political leaders have to use their power decisively and lead consistently. 

Richmond Mayor Danny Avula and VUU CEO Hakim J. Lucas, meanwhile, saw local avenues for meaningful change in Richmond’s public housing communities, the city’s youth, and attendees’ own friends and family, pointing to them as examples of groups in need of enthusiastic support. 

“Our work to create a more inclusive Richmond through housing, through policy, through storytelling, through reconciliation,” Avula said, “it is how we pursue the beloved community right here and right now.” 

The event’s focus could also be seen in the Community Leaders Awards, which recognized the Richmond Free Press and other groups, individuals and organizations for their advocacy, community, civil rights and educational contributions. 

King’s legacy remained the guiding principle for all. Keynote speaker Jeffery O. Smith, now the state’s secretary of education, said that legacy was built on King’s willingness to answer his calling over his own personal comfort. 

“We’re called on this day and in this moment to do more than to admire the dream,” Smith said. “But rather, it calls us forward, it calls us into action and it calls us into places of responsibility for such a time as this.”