When Darryl Johnson talked Monday about celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. on what would have been the civil rights leader’s 97th birthday, four words came to the New Kensington pastor’s mind — a variation on King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.
“My dreams matter, too.”
“It’s not just mine — all our dreams matter,” added Johnson, 63, the pastor since 2017 at Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in New Kensington. “We’ve got to get people to dream again.”
Johnson joined a few dozen area residents Monday afternoon to mark the federal holiday honoring King at the Digital Foundry at New Kensington.
Technology was the theme that fueled many activities at the workforce development site, which opened nearly four years ago on Fifth Avenue in the heart of the city’s business district. Some children helmed electronic devices used to control robots on a classroom floor. Others navigated rooms while sporting virtual-reality headsets.
But King — and his words — appeared on nearly every surface.
“I have a dream,” one poster featuring seven images of King read, its words backed in the red, white and blue of an American flag.
“If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl,” one quotation read, on a black-and-white poster, this one affixed to a wall near glass dispensers of ice water and lemonade. “But, by all means, keep moving.”
In one classroom, children armed with dry-erase markers approached a pair of whiteboards. “Share your MLK Day sketch here,” a handwritten note read. Some drew pictures of King, others reactions to his teachings.
Teralyn Thompson-Bossio attended MLK Day festivities in Greensburg last year.
On Monday, the New Kensington resident, an apostle with Joseph’s Coat Community Outreach in Arnold, brought her grandchildren to the Foundry, where she talked about the importance of brotherly love.
“This beloved community would not be much of anything if we did not have the ingredient of love,” Thompson-Bossio said before leading a prayer at Monday’s event, the second of its kind at the Fifth Avenue site. “When you wake up tomorrow morning, wake up with love and in service.”
Several people drew lines between the Foundry’s efforts to educate workers on technology and its role in strengthening New Kensington.
“It’s a community thing,” said Lisa Betts of Greensburg, after her daughter Ki’Leaa used programming commands to lead a robot through a nearby obstacle course. “If they had an event for Valentine’s Day, I don’t know if we’d come. But, for Martin Luther King, there’s a connection — and this place connects us with everyone.”
“We like to open our doors to the community,” Sherri McCleary, the Foundry’s executive director, told TribLive before the event. “We host things like this to make people aware we’re here … but we’re also a member of this community. And we want to give back.”
The Foundry, a nonprofit arm of Penn State University’s New Kensington campus, helps train individuals to work in manufacturing, a field assisted by ever-changing technology, McCleary said.
McCleary said she worked for more than 30 years with Alcoa and Kennametal — two companies among an estimated 5,000 manufacturers working within 40 miles of Pittsburgh.
About 98% of those manufacturers are considered small- or medium-sized businesses, she said.
The Foundry, McCleary said, will help train workers and continue to grow those businesses.
“What our mission also says, first and foremost,” added Diane Hightower, the group’s community engagement and workforce development coordinator, “is we exist here to improve lives … just like Dr. King.”
Johnson, seated in one of the Foundry’s bright-orange chairs, said King’s messages of equity and equality remain relevant today — and specifically so to Black men, women and children who call New Kensington home.
Nearly 13% of New Kensington residents were Black in 2024, census data shows. Two other Westmoreland County municipalities had larger percentages of Black residents — Arnold, at 23%, and Monessen, nearly 19% — but the largest community in total size lives in this city along the Allegheny River.
Johnson left his native New Kensington in 1985 to join the Air Force. He returned, after living for more than 20 years in Alaska, around 2016.
“The hustle and bustle here, the everyday, it’s different,” said Johnson, who lives in Lower Burrell. “But it seems like we may be on the rebound — and it’s because of places like this.”