Martin Luther King, Jr. Day In 2006 comes after a year in which the poverty and violence faced by black and Latino residents of the inner city was exposed nationally after hurricane Katrina. Hartford saw a 50 percent increase in murders from the year before. Reverend Alvan Johnson of the Bethel AME church in Bloomfield, Connecticut told WFCR’s Av Harris he hopes today’s media coverage doesn’t miss Doctor King’s true message.