Norwich ― Full tables with several people standing along the walls in the Norwich Free Academy cafeteria marked the robust full return of the annual Martin Luther King Birthday luncheon Friday.

State and federal dignitaries, including U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, all recognized the “real heroes” in the room – local educators, Norwich NAACP leaders and the many high school and middle school student recipients of Martin Luther King scholarship and Nexus scholarships.

The nearly 100 people in attendance cheered loudly when NFA Martin Luther King scholarship recipient Leopoldine Bertrand concluded her remarks with: “I will be a superintendent of schools!”

The popular annual luncheon on the Friday before Monday’s Martin Luther King Day, had been curtailed by COVID-19 for the past two years. In contrast, Friday’s event was delayed for several minutes as organizers brought in additional folding chairs to accommodate the overflow audience.

While the event honor King, the civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968 at age 39, several speakers on Friday also honored Connecticut state Rep. Quentin “Q” Williams, D-Middletown, who was killed Jan. 4 by a wrong-way driver the night after being sworn in for the 2023 legislative session. Williams, who also was 39 years old, was the first Black legislator to represent Middletown, Bysiewicz said.

Bysiewicz said King lived “a very short and monumental life,” and Williams “saw the power of uplifting women.” He changed his name to Williams, his mother’s name, to honor her efforts as a single mother.

“Q was fighting for the same things that Dr. King fought for,” Bysiewicz said. “Because although Dr. King made progress, we know that the work is not done.”

Keynote speaker Lonnie Braxton, a retired state prosecutor, said he was proud to be invited by the NAACP Robertisine Duncan Youth Council to speak at the event.

Braxton cited the theme for Friday’s celebration, “Champion Justice! Champion Peace! Champion Righteousness!” to highlight those words King had used in a 1968 sermon as the causes King fought for.

Braxton started with a poignant list of famous violent incidents, from an attack on a Black World War II veteran blinded by a Southern sheriff for using a bathroom, to the deaths of civil rights worker Medgar Evers, teenager Emmett Till and George Floyd who Braxton said was “killed by injustice, coupled by a lack of respect for righteousness.”

Braxton asked if there will be justice or peace for the victims of recent mass killings in Buffalo and Colorado Springs.

“You know what the problem is here?” Braxton said. “I could go on and on and on, in fact for days. So, I say here and now, if you want to live in the world that Dr. King envisioned, a world that we all hope for and want to lay claim to, that world, where justice, peace and righteousness are lived at high and truly championed, then you have to be willing to stand up.”

One of the best ways to “stand up for yourself,” Braxton said, is to register to vote.

“And on the date, time and place assigned, show up. Stand up and vote,” he said. “Our future as a just, peaceful and righteous world depends on it.”

c.bessette@theday.com