The dream isn’t finished

The First Baptist Church of Dover celebrated its 40th Christopher Lowery Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Tribute in honor of the Martin Luther King holiday Jan. 19.

The celebration was started by the late Rev. Lowery, who served as the head pastor at the First Baptist Church in Dover for more than 30 years.

Current First Baptist Church pastor, Rev. Rasheed As-Samad, welcomed everyone to the gathering. 

“Although Martin Luther King was a black man in America, he does not represent black history, but he also represents American history,” As-Samad said. “Civil rights are deserved by all white, black, Guatemalan, Mexican or whatever the nationality you may be. Martin Luther King exposed that hypocrisy in America. His legacy is you can't make statements like ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave,’ if we all aren’t free. You can't make statements like ‘with liberty and justice for all,’ if all are not included.”

Dr. Bradley Bielski, dean and chief administrative officer of Kent State Tuscarawas, gave the keynote address. He shared some personal experiences and how King’s words influenced him throughout his life.

As a child, Bielski recalled his family of European descent was very close friends with the Rev. Fred and Ollie Knight family, who were of African descent. Bielski’s mother and Ollie spoke on the phone almost every day and the families visited each other’s homes. Then the civil rights riots that marked the late 1960s began.

“Those nights in 1967 and the summer of 1968 I remember being afraid, and I remember the Knight family being afraid, but for very different reasons,” Bielski said.

The National Guard was deployed in the area where the families lived in two towns side by side near Cincinnati.

“They were actively patrolling the streets, and I remember my mother crying over the phone, and I remember Mrs. Knight. I could hear her crying over the phone, and they were both afraid,” Bielski said.

Bielski’s mother feared for her friend. Both feared the riots; no one wanted to be swept up in the violence.

Bielski shared one of his favorite quotes by Martin Luther King Jr., “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

“Dr. King spoke of the kind of injustice that those of us who grew up in the shadow of the 1960s witnessed,” Bielski said. “I have learned from those early days, as a child and well beyond that the dream wasn't finished.”

Bielski recalled a story when he was friends with one of the Knight’s daughters.

“She and I were in first and second grade together. We would often hang out after school, but one tradition we always had was that we would race to our mothers after school,” Bielski said. “I was always one or two steps behind her. She was just that much quicker than I was.”

No-one seemed to mind their racing. Then one day, they decided to hold hands and skip to the finish line. An action that their parents never said anything about and were proud of them. That very difference was met with the kind of shock that King experienced and left Bielski feeling uneasy at looks they received from others.

“As a child, you don't see social justice, you don't understand sociology. As a child, you understand that you just have a friend,” Bielski said.

Another contribution of King’s was his insistence that nonviolence is not passive.

“(King) understood that by moving at the pace that he did, he may lose a battle, but at the end of the day, he would win the moral war,” Bielski said.

King's final campaign was the poor people's campaign.

“He understood that equality meant more than integration, it meant dignity. True legacy isn't about who can sit at the lunch counter. It's also about who can afford the meal,” Bielski said.

The legacy of King is something that we should live every day.

“I know this journey is indeed long, and history does indeed inform us that the arc of the moral universe doesn't bend on its own. It bends, my friends, because we put our hands on it and pull it,” Bielski said.

Kim Blackwell of the Gnadenhutten area was one of the many guests in attendance. She enjoys attending the service every year.

“Martin Luther King Jr. was such a leader of men. We need more leaders in our community and our world today like him,” Blackwell said.