Martin Luther King Jr. service draws Sunday crowd
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
The Rev. Dr. Richard Wingfield, of Braddock, preaches about standing up against social injustice during a special Martin Luther King Jr. service Sunday night at Friendship Baptist Church in Washington.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Spencer Thomas, 15, reads quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. during a special service Sunday at Friendship Baptist Church in Washington.
“Can you really kill a dream?”
It was the opening question delivered to a crowd gathered at Washington’s Friendship Baptist Church on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The answer was no.
“The dream did not die with the man,” said the Rev. Deborah Mason, who opened the service. “When God places a dream in your heart, no one can take it away. You can’t kill a dream because God is in it.”
During the Sunday evening service, attendees remembered the life, work and cause of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., while worshipping the one who created all men equal.
Powerful quotes from King were delivered by 15-year-old Spencer Thomas, and the Community Male Chorus sang “Let the Power of the Lord Come Down” as donations were collected for the NAACP in Washington.
The keynote speaker was the Rev. Dr. Richard Wingfield, pastor of Unity Baptist Church of Braddock. He called King the “conscience of America.”
“Dr. King was a preacher,” Wingfield said. “The church was his foundation. Scripture was the basis of his thinking.”
Wingfield received both his master of divinity and his doctor of ministry degrees from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He serves on the board of directors for the Center for Urban Biblical Ministry, is an adjunct professor at Geneva College and is president of the Greater Braddock Ministerial Association.
His message, from Joshua 14, challenged listeners to continue to fight for the same cause as King.
“Just because we are in the promised land doesn’t mean there isn’t much work to be done to maintain the promised land,” he said. “The rains of racism are still pouring and the rivers of injustice are at flood stage.”
The beginning of this new decade, Wingfield said, is no time to take a passive role in the progression of civil rights across the country.
“We can’t blame our fathers and our mothers for what’s happening right now because it’s happening on our watch,” he said. “… Homegrown terrorism is rising up under the banner ‘Make America Great Again’ under our watch.”
Wingfield continued, saying that the law “can’t make you love me, but it can make you respect me.”
In his benediction, Wingfield challenged the audience to “not neglect” the upcoming presidential election.
“There’s a lot at stake,” he said.
Other pastors that spoke during the service mimicked Wingfield’s challenge.
“Civil rights came out of the churches, and the churches have to get back in the fight,” said the Rev. Eugene Beard, the religious affairs coordinator for the NAACP Washington branch.
Washington Mayor Scott Putnam addressed the crowd, saying that even though civil rights have come a long way, there’s still a “significant racial divide in our country.” He said that today, it would seem outrageous for it to be illegal for a black person to marry a white person.
“The truth is, it really wasn’t that long ago,” he said.
He challenged every city resident to “make an effort to cross the color line,” talk to each other and gain real perspective on the issues to which King dedicated his life.
That work and dedication from King, Wingfield said in a separate interview, is still “vitally important” locally.
“I don’t think his work is done,” Wingfield said. “Dialog needs to take place between the races so to eradicate race prejudice. Care for the least, the lost, the left out, the lonely, and work towards social justice for all.”