About fifty area residents gathered at the Reversing Falls Sanctuary in North Brooksville, Maine, on Sunday afternoon, January 19, 2025, to celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s an annual event and often features some of AWTT artist Robert Shetterly’s paintings. Shetterly lives just down the road and knows most of the gatherers. He is known in town as not only as an artist and activist, but also as a grower of vegetables, nature lover, and kind and generous neighbor. He’s spotted most days walking with his dog on Frank’s Flat or the Bridge Road.

Despite being a familiar figure, he always shows up on MLK Day with something new. This year, Shetterly brought the portraits and stories of several lesser-known “models of courageous citizenship:” World Peace Game educator John Hunter, Israel/Palestine peace activist Alice Rothchild, cultural anthropologist Kali Rubaii, advocate for clearance of unexploded ordnance in Laos Channapha Khamvongsa, advocate for safe destruction of chemical weapons Craig Williams, and one of his most recent inspirations – State Department whistleblower Hala Rharitt.

Shetterly began by sharing that he is “heart sick” about the state of the world. “I feel all broken down . . . by our complicity in what’s going on.” But we can’t stop there. We have to keep going. Nevertheless, “what can be said that’s meaningful?”

His friend and portrait subject Doug Rawlings had reminded Shetterly recently of some relevant words from Thomas Merton: “In a word, the end of our civilized society is quite literally up to us and our immediate descendants, if any. It is up to us to decide whether we are going to give in to hatred, terror and blind love of power for its own sake, and thus plunge the world into the abyss, or whether, restraining our savagery, we can patiently, and humanely work together for interests which transcend the limits of any national or ideological community.”

Shetterly also draws counsel from his current work on a portrait of Constitutional scholar and Howard University law professor Sherrilyn Ifill. He encourages everyone to listen to her November 2023 Klinsky lecture at Harvard Law School, where she urges: “[W]e must have the courage to see ourselves as founders and framers of the new America that we are trying to create.” Criticizing the political and judicial establishment for allowing an insurrectionist to hold office (tantamount to a coup, he thinks), Shetterly is contemplating the quote he will etch into Ifill’s portrait – one that, he hopes, will most poignantly speak to this travesty of justice.

The main focus of Shetterly’s talk was a William Stafford’s poem “A Ritual to Read to Each Other.” After the reading of each verse, he commented on its meaning for him and for these times.

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. . . .

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

(Read text of entire poem on the Poetry Foundation site)

Shetterly concluded that “I still believe totally that activism is possible – and necessary.”

Selected members of the audience shared the portraits and stories of the six portrait subjects. The quote from his most recent portrait of Hala Rharrit was the final reading: “One of the most chilling things I witnessed as an American diplomat was colleagues willfully turning a blind eye to the horrors unfolding in Gaza. Even while admitting the illegality and inhumanity of the policy and the fact that it was a threat to our own U.S. national security, they went along – for their own interests or careers. And that’s when I realized why so many atrocities keep repeating themselves throughout history – when seemingly good people choose to remain silent.” As the readings ended, the power of the stories filled the room with renewed energy.

And then singing. There is always singing. The group enjoyed belting out verses of “This Little Light of Mine,” King’s favorite hymn “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” and, of course, “We Shall Overcome.”

And a final message from Dr King:

I am not going to stop singing, “We Shall Overcome,” because I know that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I’m not going to stop singing, “We Shall Overcome,” because I know that the truth crushed to the earth will rise again. I’m not going to stop singing, “We Shall Overcome,” because I know the Bible is right, “You shall reap what you sow.” . . . I’m not going to stop singing, “We Shall Overcome,” because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He’s trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. Glory Hallelujah, his truth is marching on.