King holiday celebration off to a good start
Lewis DiuguidThe weeklong celebration for the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. got off to a good start in Kansas City with the Urban Summit on Saturday and Interfaith Service on Sunday.
People braved the cold to listen to speakers and attend workshops on health care, economic development, education and crime/re-entry during the Urban Summit at Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley.
They were treated to music and speeches at the Interfaith Service at Community Christian Church. The Rev. Raphael Gamaliel Warnock, senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — King’s spiritual home — told the audience that King was a unique figure in American history. No person with “greater eloquence, passion or power” captured the meaning of the American Dream the way that King did before he was assassinated at age 39 in 1968.
“King challenged the conscience of the nation,” Warnock said. Though dead 45 years now, King’s continues to push America to be better.
Too many people still feel “threatened by the dream,” Warnock said. Instead they should be frightened by the status quo.
The continuing segregation and relentless inequality are unsustainable. “Equal rights for some is an inherent contradiction,” Warnock said.
Comments
No comments have been posted. Perhaps you'd like to be the first?