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President Obama's Inauguration Fuels Hope At Martin Luther King Jr. Day Events

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

Jasmine Johnson, 11, center, practices a routine with the Family Christian Association of America Baby Diamond Steppers before the start of the Martin Luther King Jr. parade organized by the FCAA on Monday in Avon Park. Jasmine Johnson, 11, center, practices a routine with the Family Christian Association of America Baby Diamond Steppers before the start of the Martin Luther King Jr. parade organized by the FCAA on Monday in Avon Park.

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: January 20, 2009

AVON PARK - http://highlandstoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/inde...
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"I have a dream," the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his most famous speech, "that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

The fact that voters judged President Barack Obama's character worthy of the presidency gave an extra air of excitement and hope to Monday's observances of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Sloan Jones was among the nearly 300 people who gathered at the Avon Park Community Center at 7 a.m. for the 10th annual prayer breakfast of the Highlands County chapter of the NAACP to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

With King's civil rights work laying the groundwork, Jones said, Obama's inauguration today lifts up the hopes of many people.

"It gives you the thought that one day, my son, Charlie Brown, can be the president," she said. "When you have kids that can look up and say the dream is real, there is real change now."

Brown, a sophomore at Avon Park High School, portrayed President Obama at noon, during the Martin Luther King Day parade, which wound from Hopewell Academy to Memorial Field, where more than 500 people celebrated both King's legacy and Obama's inauguration the next day.

"The beauty of Dr. Martin Luther King," Brown said as he portrayed and quoted Obama, "is that he always believed that the dreams and the dreamers will prevail, as long as we kept the faith of our forefathers."

At the prayer breakfast, Pastor Edgar T. Pickett III of World Alive Ministries in Polk County, the keynote speaker, said people who want to see the country rebound can't wait for "top-down" help.

"One thing I want you to know is, regardless of who is commander in chief, if things are going to change, it has to start locally, it has to start at the grass roots," he said.

Pickett portrayed President Obama's inauguration as a turning point, not the end, in the drives for racial and economic justice.

"Now as we begin to celebrate Dr. King, he said economic empowerment and justice was always a part of the purpose," Pickett said. "Civil rights without economic parity is still imprisonment. While we have come a long way, the statistics prove that we still have more ground to cover."

Change is needed, Pickett said, in dropping the rates of incarceration of black men and of health problems afflicting black people in greater percentages than whites.

"In our neighborhoods, 40 percent of our nation's homeless are African-Americans - we need change," he added. "Black unemployment is 11.9 percent, and for the black male it is 13.4 percent, compared to 6.6 percent for white males. We need change."

Pickett told the crowd to live their faith in God as they work for positive change.

"God has already given us the greatest bail out plan, and that is his Word, something we can stand on," he said.

"Yes, we want change, but change begins in the heart of mankind," Pickett added. "Until we get that change and recognize that we are our brother's keeper, and recognize that in order to have a community there must be unity, there will never be change, and we will look to the next president to tell us how we can bail ourselves out."

Lorenzo Jones, who helped emcee the prayer breakfast, called Obama's inauguration the day after the annual holiday celebrating Dr. King's life "amazing."

"If you think about all the things that Martin Luther King fought for and that he dreamed about, it's all coming together," he said,

"I believe a lot of doors and a lot of glass ceilings have been broken because of the election of Barack Obama, and I think all this is a culmination of all that has happened through the years of people having hope," Jones added.

"I believe this nation is getting to a generation that looks at people only as people," Jones said. Referring to Obama's inauguration, he said, "Martin Luther King had so much to do with what's going on tomorrow, he is still effective in what he has done, even 40 years ago."

Highlands Today reporter Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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