Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten....America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness--justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Poor Person's Luncheon - "There is a Poverty of Spirit"
First Baptist Church of Madison located at 34 Cook Avenue will celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday January 17, 2011. The annual celebration will begin with a ‘Poor Person’s Luncheon’ from 12 noon to 1:00 pm in the Harriet Shelton Fellowship Hall serving beans, tossed salad, cornbread and beverages.
The program will consist of revisiting and assessing concerns raised in Dr. King’s Nobel Lecture on December 11, 1964, where he describes modern’s man’s chief dilemma - racial injustice, poverty, and war. The program will reflect on these key words in his speech:
‘There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.’
The program facilitator is Dr. Charles H. Smith who attended the 1963 March on Washington and served as the National Deputy Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His focus will be to highlight juvenile injustices, the forgotten ghetto and the price of war for the poor and people of color. The one-hour program will be blessed with music and poetry.
