On Wednesday, Feb. 15, Augusta’s Sacred Heart Cultural Center remembered Martin Luther King Jr. with a celebration that spanned several religions, and highlighted the importance of peace.
After not meeting in-person for three years, the Progressive Religious Coalition of Augusta began the service with a joined singing of “Lit Ev’ry Voice and Sing” by an audience filled with members from various churches, denominations and faiths.
To showcase unity within the community, the coalition hosted a 15th annual interfaith celebration which featured songs and reading selections from many different religious groups. Participants included: Presbyterians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Roman Catholics, Hindus, Unitarian Universalists, Baha’is, Espiscopals and others.
“The [Progressive Religious Coalition] has been creating opportunities to unify people to brew respectful relationships, promote understanding of religious traditions, to provide mutual support and express our common spiritualities through community action for nearly two decades,” said Augusta University’s Chief Diversity Officer Garret Green.
Green said, in today’s polarizing social and political environments, programs such as the coalition are needed more than ever, because diversity adds to educational, healthcare and work systems.
“King said, ‘we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will perish together as fools,’” said Green. “As a society, we must come together to truly see that our diversity is our strength. It’s what makes us special; it’s what makes us innovative.”
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After hearing songs such as “The Road Not Taken” and “Ride the Chariot” sung by Augusta University’s student choir, also known as the AU University Singers, participating community leaders shared divergent readings, and religious messages centered around loving, accepting and forgiving others.
“In sovereign love God created the world good, and makes everyone equally in God’s image, male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community,” said Reverend Hilary Shuford.
Thomson High School senior Chyra Strong also performed a powerful recitation from “A Woman Called Truth” by Sandra Fenichel Asher, which focused on pondering the societal role of African Americans as not only slaves, but also as women.
“‘Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman. Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with Him,” recited Strong. “‘If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again. And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.”
Following a standing ovation and intense applause from the audience for Strong’s performance, the 15th annual keynote speaker Eddie Glaude Jr. was introduced, and began to speak on how Martin Luther King’s message still affects society today.
“Racism cripples our imagination; it deforms our moral sense and contorts our character,” he said. “Forgetfulness makes us vulnerable.”
According to Glaude, people often like to celebrate King as if his legacy was abolishing the problem of racism altogether. Glaude said even King acknowledged his work was not over in his last few days alive.
“King said, ‘we’ve got some dark days ahead,’” he said. “Americans are divided and … too often we see each other as enemies … we find ourselves still fighting a civil war.”
However, Glaude said that by acknowledging these problems and national issues, Americans can work to tackle lasting racism.
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“A nation that continues to lie to itself will never truly know what it is we have to confront. We have to confront the ugliness of who we are as a precondition for us to heal,” he said. “We’re going to have to confront all those people who died … they haunt. Those ghosts that have this nation by the throat.”
To end his speech, Galude said identifying these problems are not dissimilar to Christians acknowledging themselves as sinners in order to become wiser and more faithful in the long run; in this way, he said Americans can bridge the national gaps by having not just “physical proximity,” but also “spiritual affinity” with each other.
“We have to imagine a different way to be together,” he said. “We have to imagine a new life for the nation … one where we cast away the false idols of racism, and treasure the beauty of human beings and all of their differences. We can build a truly great society.”
From certain schools getting more funding to limited access to healthcare, the Progressive Religious Coalition President Andy Reese said he believed the interfaith celebration was important, because it educated people to the necessity of having justice and equity for all.
“This is an amazing healthcare center, and yet our poorest people don’t have access to it,” he said. “You know, Dr. King said, ‘there will not be peace in the nations until there is peace among the religions, and there will not be peace among the religions until they talk to each other.’ So that’s why we do it … to show that we can work together.”
Reese said he hoped audiences would take away hope – hope for the world King wanted for everyone.
To close the evening out in the spirit of peace and unity, the service then ended with audiences and participants standing, all joining hands and singing together “We Shall Overcome.”
Liz Wright is a staff writer covering education, lifestyle and general assignments for The Augusta Press. Reach her at liz@theaugustapress.com
