The same day President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in federal agencies as one of his first orders of business, Wayne Jennings was celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday the same way he has for more than 20 years: by hosting a dinner to honor him and the spirit of diversity he championed.
Jennings didn’t address the news from Washington during the 21st Annual Keeping the Dream Alive dinner at the Double-Tree Hotel in Nashua on Jan. 20, but I talked to him about it privately during the event.
In 2000, Jennings, a Republican and former president of the New Hampshire NAACP, founded the New Hampshire Cultural Diversity Council, a nonprofit that has since been renamed the National Cultural Diversity Awareness Council.
Jennings didn’t say specifically whether he approved Trump’s decision, but he said DEI has gotten a bad name.
“My feeling is that you can offer and have diversity and still have merit too, but you got to promote fairness and equality,” he said. “The best way to put it is that you wouldn’t put an airplane in the hands of somebody who isn’t qualified, regardless of the color of their skin.
However, if you’re looking for an experienced pilot with skills and you’re looking for a minority person, those people are out there.”
Jennings alluded to the pushback that public companies have faced. They include Target, which is ending its DEI programs, responding to shareholder pressure. By contrast, Costco says it will continue to maintain its DEI programs.
Jennings, who moved to New Hampshire from Washington, D.C., nearly 40 years ago, says there’s “room for improvement” in promoting diversity.
“But unfortunately, the wrong people got involved in diversity and they just pushed their agenda, and it just created a bad image,” Jennings said.
He hopes to change that: “We’re going to bring diversity back. Justin Timberlake had a song. He said he’s going to bring sexy back.”
Gov. Kelly Ayotte presents Wayne Jennings, founder of the National Cultural Diversity Awareness Council, with a proclamation recognizing his work at the 21st annual Keeping the Dream Alive dinner in Nashua on Jan. 20. (Photo by Mike Cote)
Connecting with the U.K.
The mission of the National Cultural Diversity Awareness Council, as noted in the program booklet for the Keeping the Dream Alive dinner, is “to increase awareness of the need for communication, understanding and respect among people of diverse backgrounds.”
The nonprofit aims to do that through community events, youth cultural diversity workshops and alliances with corporations, educational institutions, government agencies and nonprofit organizations.
The theme of this year’s dinner was to promote economic development and trade with the United Kingdom and featured a keynote address from David Clay, the British consul general based in Boston.
Clay, who said his first trip to New Hampshire was to attend the NH Highland Games last year with his 2-year-old son, found a way to connect his talk to King’s legacy.
“When asked to speak on Martin Luther King Day to a room full of Americans, I was wondering what on earth a Brit could say about Doctor King to you all,” Clay said. “Of course, Doctor King’s message of racial justice and equality was completely transformative in the United States. But his message and his extraordinary leadership also resonated far beyond the shores of the U.S., including in the U.K.”
Clay noted that when King Charles III was crowned in May 2023, he was the first British monarch to walk into Westminster Abbey for his coronation underneath a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. that was placed there in 1998 as part of a display that honors 10 modern martyrs.
“I think the decision to honor Doctor King in this way — in the church that has been absolutely at the center of British national life for almost a thousand years — I think shows firstly his influence as a religious leader with the Church of England and with the religious communities across the world,” Clay said.
“But I think it also reflects the enormous popular admiration in the U.K. for Doctor King. After his assassination in 1968, thousands of British people marched through central London to St. Paul’s Cathedral to pay their respects and mourn his loss.”
