​Contra Costa MLK ceremony to honor 2022 adult, student humanitarians

By Lou Fancher

Noting the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 18 will present its 44th annual King ceremony.

 The theme for this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. ceremony (bayareane.ws/CoCoMLKDay) is ”One People, One Nation, One Dream.” Recognizing two county residents who increase not only civil rights awareness but offer real-life solutions and fresh pathways to ongoing change, the ceremony will honor Adult Humanitarian of the Year Gigi Crowder, of Antioch, the executive director of Concord’s nonprofit National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI); and Student Humanitarian of the Year Kaia Morgan, of Pittsburg, a senior at Concord’s Ygnacio Valley High School.

Contra Costa County Communications Director Susan Shiu says the ceremony is typically held indoors at the county administrators’ office in Martinez.

“The Board of Supervisors usually breaks out of their meeting to hold the event. I anticipate that in their next meeting … they will determine alterations that may or may not be made due to changing safety protocols related to the (COVID-19) omicron variant. (Anyone) can watch the event live online {at contracosta.ca.gov/6086 or contracostatv.org). The ceremony will be also broadcast live on Contra Costa Television (CCTV); channels Comcast Cable 27, ATT/U-Verse 99, and WAVE 32.”

Shiu says county celebrations often reflect ways in which the committees presenting the events work across cities and communities in the county. For that reason, San Ramon’s former Mayor Abram Wilson will be the keynote speaker.

“He has been working on funding for the East Bay Regional Communications System and disaster plans in the Tri-Valley area,” says Shiu. “His work on behalf of residents in Contra Costa County allows him to speak on the theme of this year’s event that’s about unity and shared vision.”

Asked about the honorees, Shiu said that when the new chair for the county board is determined, that individual will speak to their contributions. In the meantime, Shiu says, “As with every year, these individuals invoke the spirit of Dr. King in how they serve the community. Kaia Morgan, the student honoree, in her short life has already created impact and change. Adult honoree Gigi Crowder embodies this year’s theme in how she unifies all of us for the common goal of tolerance and acceptance.”

Morgan, an International Baccalaureate student, in February 2020 learned of the harmful impact of stereotypical school mascots on Native Americans. She immediately launched the Change the Mascot Committee at Ygnacio Valley High. As of December 2021, the school had replaced its former Warriors mascot with the Wolves.

Crowder, the adult honoree, was inducted into the Alameda County Women Hall of Fame in 2002. Before coming to NAMI as executive director, the Oakland native and UC Berkeley alumni served for nearly a decade as the ethnic services manager for Alameda County Behavioral Health Services. NAMI Contra Costa is a free, nonprofit Concord organization that provides outreach, education, support and advocacy to families and individuals dealing with mental illness.

During its 30 year history, NAMI has in particular supported underserved people in the community through groups, classes and multilingual services available to Asian Pacific Islanders, Latinx, African American and Transitional Age Youth (teens and young adults leaving state custody or foster care) as well as services available to the general public.

“COVID came with its own, broader lessons because people haven’t had honest, open conversations about living with mental health challenges,” Crowder said. “We all have seen an increase in depression due to to the isolation of COVID, especially for school children with distance learning that highlighted the experience they were having — and with older adults who experienced the spread of “failure to thrive,” the term I am using that typically is applied to newborns.”Crowder says mental health attention shifted not only to people of color and children but to older populations. Conditions related to dementia intensified, and seniors whose routines of going to church, seeing family members and living in community became overwhelmed by depression due to isolation.

“With this award, I get to talk about the evidence that we are not doing well in the areas of mental health. It is an opportunity for change. How do you move from anecdotal to factual statistics and evidence? Take this in: for African Americans who make up less than 10% of Contra Costa County’s population, if you go to Martinez, where the criminal justice mental health unit is located, you’ll see the number of individuals of color held is well beyond 35%. That is me speaking conservatively. Typically, on any given day, it’s 50 to 60%.”

Law enforcement that has long criminalized mental health illness is reactive and does not offer strength-based solutions, according to Crowder.

“I don’t use words like ‘at risk.’ I say, ‘at promise if given the opportunity.’ Instead of incarceration, expose people to natural resources such as those found in faith centers. We rely too much on government resources that have systemic bias and are part of the problem. I wish I was wrong about this, but we’re not using upstream approaches,” Crowder says. “We don’t see how people who live in the river drown, we just pick them out of the river after they drown. With systemic bias that pushes them in, that promotes failure versus success. We need to go upstream and reach them before they’re in the river.”

Crowder says she has worked with “wonderful law enforcement officers” who were more compassionate because they had personal connection with mental health medical situations.

“Mental illness comes up with everyone, in all communities,” she says. “Often, we blame the people with mental health issues. We say because they live on the street they’re drug-addicted. But when we know they were abandoned during childhood or placed in the criminal system instead of receiving health services or have been unhoused their entire adult lives or have a chemical imbalance that causes them to become unbalanced, we have compassion.
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“All individuals living with mental health illness are underserved, but especially people in communities of color. Our role is to encourage compassion and to deliver treatment services that strengthen and uplift the community.”