LOCAL EVENTS COMMEMPORATE KING

Dr. William Bird Sr. was awarded the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award at Centenary United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau Monday night. Bird was honored with the award by the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance and the Minister's Coalition for Progress.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream that one day America would live out its role as a place for justice where people could live in brotherhood, and the dream lives on, speakers said in honor of King Monday.

Monday was a federal holiday honoring the life of the slain civil rights leader. Cape Girardeau observed the holiday with a breakfast at the Show Me Center and an evening worship service at Centenary United Methodist Church.

The Rev. Dr. William Gillespie spoke to nearly 300 people Monday night at the 10th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Worship Service. He asked the crowd who is responsible for carrying out King's dream.

"I believe that his dream will become a reality if we do what God wants us to do," Gillespie said. "And if we don't do it, God will do it for himself."

The Rev. Miles White, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church, said joining God in the dream to seek goodness and live in harmony while showing love and mercy to the community is what makes the Rev. Bill Bird Sr. an ideal recipient for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award.

Bird received a standing ovation when it was announced that he had been selected to receive the award, which is given by the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance.

Knowing the significance of what King stood for and being selected is a privilege, Bird said. "When you think about the magnitude of changes that King made to the nation and to our world," being selected is an honor, he said.

King began his work with the civil rights movement as a pastor in Montgomery, Ala. He is probably most famous for his "I Have A Dream" speech, but his willingness to pursue that dream, even if it meant losing his life, is what made him worth honoring with a national holiday, said Dwayne Bryant.

Bryant was featured speaker at the 15th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast Monday at the Show Me Center. He overcame a childhood of poverty to attain a lucrative career with Johnson & Johnson and then resigned at the height of his career to found Inner Vision International Inc. His company's mission is to motivate, educate and inspire people to achieve their potential.

Bryant used a combination of modern images and biblical stories to demonstrate to the more than 700 people at the breakfast that everyone has the potential to live a life of purpose just as King did.

"There's something you've been called to do that only you can do," he said. "We get so afraid in life because so many people tell us what we cannot do. If God has called us to be great, who are we to doubt it and accept mediocrity and to settle?"

King was not a person to listen to naysayers, Bryant said. Despite the many threats to his life and family, and despite the many people who believed his dream was unattainable, King continued to work toward his goal of equality.

Although King has been dead for more than 30 years, Gillespie still remembers him as a contemporary. King started his ministry in Montgomery just a few years before Gillespie went to Cote Brilliante Presbyterian Church in St. Louis.

"He didn't think about black only when he talked of overcoming the problem of racism because he felt that enough people of all colors yellow, brown and white would join with the blacks to see that the problem of racism could be defeated," Gillespie said.

Discrimination still exists, he said. King never believed that life would be without struggles and trials and tribulations. "He never sacrificed principle for expediency" in his battle to rid the nation of the "cancer of racism" that was raging, he said.

"He lived his life as best he could knowing what God demanded of him," Gillespie said.

"Martin was a man of purpose," Bryant said. But "as I look throughout the country, I wonder where have all the Martins gone?"

Bryant encouraged people to define their purpose, remember their heritage and identify their destiny in their pursuit of dreams. Leaders are always needed and can be identified at a young age, but the proper role models must be willing to step in and help youth achieve their potential.

People also must be willing to hold leaders to a higher standard of accountability for their actions, he said.

"To grow leadership, we've got to show them what leaders do," said Bryant. "We get away with so much that the kids are watching and think they can do the same things. It's our duty to let them know otherwise."

A near-record crowd attended the breakfast, including some 250 children from area schools. The 700-plus attendance was only bested by the 1995 breakfast, when a crowd of more than 800 people were on hand to hear keynote speaker Anita Hill, the law professor who raised the issue of sexual harassment at the nomination hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.