Nearly 100 attend evening King tribute at St. James

The crowd at St. James AME Church clapped, danced, sang and stomped to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday Sunday evening.

Nearly 100 people attended the 22nd annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration and were treated to songs by a men's choir, a performance from a local dance troupe and testimony about King from two local pastors.

Performances from Greater Dimension Church's Praise Dance Team and Sunshine Band as well as the New Bethel Men's Choir highlighted the night. There was rarely a quiet moment during the celebration as attendees sang and clapped to honor King, who would have turned 83 Sunday.

The crowd stomped as the men's choir belted out a cappella renditions of "Hide Behind the Mountain" and other gospel favorites, and clapped in time with the Sunshine Band's performance.

When the music for the dance team's performance began to skip during the routine, the congregation began clapping in unison and helped the team finish the number. Although some of the team's members appeared embarrassed at the thought of dancing to choppy music, they were greeted with hardy applause from the crowd.

The Rev. Rodney Moody of St. James AME Church presents a tribute during the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Celebration Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012. (Fred Lynch)

The performances gave way to a speech by Dan Johnson, pastor of Evangelical United Church of Christ, about growing up in a segregated America. Johnson said he did not know much about King's life but has felt the influence of it throughout his own life.

Johnson, who is white, grew up in a military family during the civil rights movement. He said he was told by his family that African-Americans were inferior but never witnessed inferiority firsthand.

"We had a divided mind and a divided heart," Johnson said of his family. "It always seemed strange to me that they were viewed so negatively. All the contact I had with African-Americans were positive."

Johnson said he learned in mixed classrooms because he lived on military bases where integration had already begun. When Johnson moved to a suburb in Washington, D.C., he became surrounded by only white people, he said.

"This is the world Martin Luther King Jr. came into," he said of the segregation. "But he stood against that."

After Johnson spoke, the Rev. Rodney Moody of St. James AME told the audience that the spiritual influences -- namely Christianity -- are what drove King to stand up against segregation.

"Before he was a civil rights leader, he was a Christian," Moody said.

Moody said that King's Christian foundation started earlier because King's father was a pastor. His path to being a leading voice against racism was fueled by that foundation, Moody said.

"If you hang around a barbershop long enough, you're going to get a haircut," Moody said of King's Christian upbringing.

A broader internal force that drove King to being a civil rights leader was love, Moody said. The civil rights movement would not have been possible without love, Moody said, because passion and equality are unattainable without it.

To realize King's dream from his most famous speech, people today must love unconditionally and not be hindered by differences, Moody said.

"If we do not clothe ourselves with love, we will not make it," he said.

Sunday evening's celebration was capped with the presentation of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Service Award. Marcia Southard-Ritter was given the award for her service work both in Cape Girardeau and abroad. Southard-Ritter has served as a missionary in the West Indies, Mozambique, Mexico, Liberia and Honduras. She has also served on the Cape Girardeau City Council and the Family Resource Center board.

"I never expected this," Southard-Ritter said. "I just wanted to reach out."

psullivan@semissourian.com

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