At Manchester Memorial High School on Monday, the theme of the annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. this year was “Uplifting Resistance through Community.”

Sebastian Fuentes, a member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition, which organized the event, said it was a day of community and unity.

“As you know anxiety is all over the place,” Fuentes said. “So we thought: what better way to honor Dr. King’s legacy with getting all those folks doing the work on the streets, doing the work in the community, in one place. Let’s have some music, let’s have some food, let’s have some conversations.”

Fuentes said roughly 24 organizations came together for the event, including the Business Alliance for People of Color, and the New Hampshire Youth Movement. The day included conversations about building resilience in today’s political climate.

Melanie Levesque, New Hampshire’s first Black state senator, was given the 2026 Martin Luther King Jr. Award.

Levesque accepted her award on behalf of her parents, whose experience moving to Massachusetts guided her to help pass legislation on civil unions and marriage equality. She remarked on the value of Martin Luther King Jr.’s message in the current moment.

“I feel that we need his influence more than ever right now because we are in tough times,” Levesque said. “He was in tough times, but his words, especially words of community and resilience, are words that we can live by.”

Levesque also announced her intention to run for Executive Council in 2026. She previously ran as a Democrat in 2024 in District 5, where she was defeated by incumbent Republican Dave Wheeler.

State House Representative Alice Wade was also honored with the 2026 Vanessa Washington-Johnson Bloeman Award as an emerging leader in social justice.

The White House responded Monday to the New Hampshire Episcopal bishop who urged his clergy to finalize their wills and get their affairs in order and prepare for a “new era of martyrdom” at a vigil for ICE shooting victim Renee Good.

Bishop A. Robert Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire also criticized the “horror unleashed in Minneapolis” and said people of Christian faith should not fear death in a Jan. 9 speech, a video of which has since gone viral.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in an emailed response to a question from NBC News about Hirschfeld’s address: “No one should follow advice encouraging them to commit crimes. Anyone who interferes with federal law enforcement operations is committing a crime and will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Trump administration has staunchly defended the fatal Jan. 7 shooting of Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis. They insist Ross fired in self-defense against a motorist who ran him over — even though cellphone video of the shooting showed Good turning the steering wheel away from Ross as she began to drive and Ross still standing after he shot into her SUV numerous times.

Good’s killing has sparked numerous anti-ICE protests across Minneapolis and harsh criticism from local leaders like Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who are now being investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly conspiring to impede federal immigration agents.

Hirschfeld addressed Good’s shooting at a Jan. 9 vigil in Concord, New Hampshire.

Responding to the White House, he said, “In no way have I, or will I, advocate, support, or encourage, criminal behavior, especially acts of violence.”

“We are speaking about peaceful, non-violent resistance against those who without warrant or justification threaten physical injury, or even death,” he said in an email to NBC News. “Non-violence and love, as Jesus himself practiced and lived, should be the way for us to settle all differences in a free society.”

During his speech, Hirschfeld criticized “those who call themselves Christians” and who are close to the Trump administration and “who tell us the way the world works is by force.”

He also mentioned several historical clergy members who risked their lives to protect others, including New Hampshire seminary student Jonathan Daniels, who was shot and killed by an Alabama sheriff’s deputy while he was shielding a young Black civil rights activist in 1965.

“I have told the clergy of the Episcopal diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness,” Hirschfeld said. “And I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements but for us with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

Hirschfeld said people of Christian faith should not fear death, but he did not call for responding to the ICE raids with violence.

“Those of us who are ready to build a new world, we also have to be prepared,” he said. “If we truly want to live without fear, we cannot fear even death itself, my friends.”

As for Good, Hirschfeld said, “I believe God is raising Renee Good to glory right now.”

Good, 37, a mother of three and a U.S. citizen, was behind the wheel of an SUV on a snowy residential street when she was shot and killed by Ross.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Ross was treated in a hospital for injuries he sustained in the incident and was released soon after.

But emergency services logs obtained by NBC News say Ross was first taken to a federal building. A DHS official claimed that Ross sustained internal bleeding to the torso after the incident but did not elaborate on the extent of his injuries.