Thursday, January 24, 2019

MLK Day Speaker at First Baptist Church, Dover, OH

On Jan 21, I was honored to give the address at the First Baptist Church in Dover, Ohio for their annual Martin Luther King Day Celebration. First Baptist is a historic African American congregation. After the service, the older church members shared their stories with me and my family of life in "Tin Town" between the wars.

The local newspaper covered the event and included a fair summary of my talk and some extensive (and well punctuated) quotations.

“If we dream dreams like King for righteousness and justice in our world, then we are in fact praying. And God’s justice and righteousness isn’t something that we dream on and pray for, it’s something we do.”

“Dr. King’s dream for reconciliation, peace and justice in this country is still a prayer yet to be fully answered, but it’s a prayer that challenges us not to be just dreamers one night a year, not just something we include in status updates. No, that prayer challenges us to put our feet on the path of God’s righteousness to do right by our neighbors.”