James Cotter, Professor
Photo by Lee Ferris
By Mary McTamaney
In the week of our national holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., we will often hear the words of the iconic American leader. Broadcast channels will offer excerpts of his inspiring speeches along with images of him at the Washington Monument or the marches in Georgia and Alabama or at the pulpit of his church.
Rev. Dr. King was a singular man and no equal force has ever taken his place. Thousands of pages and hours of film chronicle his famous words and deeds and we think we have a thorough profile of the man. Yet, there is almost always more to learn.
This month’s Viewfinder, the publication of Scenic Hudson, shared a precious discovery. Tucked away for almost fifty years in the New York State Archives, was an old reel-to-reel tape recording of a speech given by Dr. King two years before the famous March On Washington.
It was a speech given not in Memphis nor in Atlanta, Washington or Selma. It was given in 1962 in New York. Martin Luther King came at the invitation of his friend, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, to speak on the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. King and Rockefeller had shared the stage a few times before and King knew many other New Yorkers. March 25, 1968, he came to the Concord Hotel in the Catskills to a Rabbinical Assembly to honor his friend, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel another man of peace and justice. Ten days later King was dead. His written and spoken words are his legacy and he shared them tirelessly. At 32, he spoke to a packed house of over 1,000 people in Albany, to raise support for the Southern Leadership Conference and came north many times more bringing awareness of the growing threats to freedom in 1960’s America.
Scenic Hudson’s Viewfinder has shared a link to the now-digitized speech Dr. King made in New York commemorating emancipation. It is posted in their current issue: http://www.scenichudson.org/viewfinder/mlks-haunting-words-to-the-hudson-valley
This week, there is a glowing thread connecting the discovery and publication of Dr. King’s inspiring words to words of another local icon. Dr. James Finn Cotter died at home here in Newburgh at age 92 and his words are also recorded and shared online to give us hope, joy and direction.
Dr. Cotter was Professor Emeritus at Mount Saint Mary College, having retired in 2020 after 57 years. His grasp of literature, philosophy, art, drama, theology and music opened the world for generations of college students. As an author, he modeled the scholarship he urged his students to pursue. He translated Dante from the Italian in an award-winning text. He was awarded grants and fellowships and taught abroad. For those not affiliated in any way with Mount Saint Mary College, Jim Cotter was still a community pillar.
In his first years living in Newburgh, when Dr. King was still a living role model, Dr. Cotter joined the city’s Human Rights Commission as he saw Newburgh fractured by arguments over urban renewal. He was a long-time member of the Friends of the Newburgh Free Library. He helped at book sales and led book discussion groups. He organized readings by local poets during National Poetry Month in April. He often wrote reviews for the local and regional press drawing people into the great performances in Hudson Valley theaters. And he mentored generations to come. He was available with opinion and guidance to his students and colleagues, even years after they had left campus.
Like other great teachers, Jim was a fantastic story teller, seeing the universal connections in our lives. If one was lucky enough to join him on one of his long morning walks around east Newburgh, you always absorbed something new about the timelines of humanity.
Mount Saint Mary College, like Scenic Hudson, has recently shared stored recordings that bring a great man to life. What they have broadcast on the college website is a poetry reading Jim gave in the library on campus named after him – the old paneled villa library that is part of the original construction of the Van Duzer estate. James Finn Cotter wrote all the words he reads in this video. It is a revealing look at a long life by someone who equipped himself well to share its lessons. The reading by Dr. Cotter, as well as more about his life among us can be found at the college’s website: msmc.edu/remembering-dr.cotter/. The recording is the second frame of the page about his life and career.