King Day highlights transition from Obama to Trump in office
SOUTH CHAPEL
Joe Van Barnes
Mr. Joe Van Barnes, age 82, of Silver Creek, Ga., passed away Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, in a local hospital.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete at this time but will be announced later.
Henderson & Sons Funeral Home, South Chapel, has charge of the funeral arrangements.
David Lamar Carter
Mr. David Lamar Carter, age 68, of Silver Creek, passed away Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017, at his residence.
Mr. Carter was born in Polk County, Ga. on December 12, 1948, son of the late Robert Lee Carter and the late Mary Elizabeth Billings Carter. He was also preceded in death by a daughter, Tammy Danita Blaylock, and by 11 siblings. Mr. Carter was a veteran of the United States Army and served during the Vietnam War. He received the Purple Heart for injuries received during the War. Prior to his becoming medically disabled in 1994, he was employed with the Georgia Department of Corrections at the Rome Diversion Center for several years. Mr. Carter was passionate about his service to our veterans. He was former President of the Floyd County Vietnam Veterans Association, was an honorary member of Rolling Thunder, Inc., formerly served in the American Legion and was a member of the Veterans of Foreign War Post #4911 in Rome. Mr. Carter was a member of New Etna Baptist Church in Rockmart.
Survivors include his wife, the former Jewell Bennett, to whom he was married on May 4, 1968; three daughters, Lorie Poole, and her husband, Mike, Silver Creek, Amy Camp, and her husband, Jonathan, Rome, and Valarie Carter, Silver Creek; a son, Scott Carter, and his wife, Leah, Silver Creek; five grandchildren, Joshua Poole, Silver Creek, Jacob Poole, Silver Creek, Caleb Blaylock, Rome, Caitlin Blaylock Rome, and Jace Carter, Silver Creek; several nieces and nephews also survive.
Graveside services will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2017, at 2 p.m. in Georgia National Cemetery in Canton. Brother Darrell Camp will officiate.
The family will receive friends at Henderson & Sons Funeral Home, South Chapel, on Wednesday from 10 a.m. until noon. At other hours, they may be contacted at the residence.
Henderson & Sons Funeral Home, South Chapel, has charge of the funeral arrangements.
Evelyn Henderson Tillery
Mrs. Evelyn Henderson Tillery, age 95, of Lindale, passed away Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017.
Funeral services will be held today, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, at 2 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Lindale with her Pastor, the Rev. Tim Burnham officiating. Private interment will follow later in Oaknoll Memorial Gardens.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to First Baptist Church of Lindale, P. O. Box 26, Lindale, Ga., 30147.
Henderson & Sons Funeral Home, South Chapel, has charge of the funeral arrangements. Louise Annette Newman
Miss Louise Annette Newman, age 94, of Summerville, Georgia died Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017, Riverwood Remembrance Village.
Miss Newman was born in Sevierville, Tennessee on March 13, 1922, a daughter of the late James Harrison Newman and Nora Ridley Newman. She was a member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Rome, Georgia, and was an employee of Batty State Hospital for 33 years. She was preceded in death by a brother, Roy Newman and four sisters Ethel Lois Black, Bess Kirk, Roby Mosley, and Gladys Smithson. She is survived by a host of nieces, nephews, great, great-great, and greatgreat great nieces and nephews.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday, Jan. 17, at 2 p.m. from the J. D. Hill Memorial Chapel of Earle Rainwater Funeral Home, with Pastor Jack Karch officiating, interment in Greenhills Memory Garden. Visitation will be Tuesday from noon until the hour of service at the Funereal Home.
Earle Rainwater Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.
ATLANTA — As Americans celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leaders and activists are trying to reconcile the transition from the nation’s first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most nonwhite voters.
In more than one venue Monday, speakers and attendees expressed reservations about President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration, some even raising the specter of the Ku Klux Klan.
“When men no better than Klansmen dressed in suits are being sworn in to office, we cannot be silent,” said Opal Tometi, a Black Lives Matter co-founder, told a crowd in Brooklyn.
King’s daughter offered a less direct message, encouraging 2,000 people at her father’s Atlanta church to work for his vision of love and justice “no matter who is in the White House.”
Bernice King spoke at Ebenezer Baptist hours before her brother, Martin Luther King III, met privately with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. The younger King described the meeting as “productive.”
Trump won fewer than 1 out of 10 black voters in November after a campaign
Audience members join hands while singing “We Shall Overcome” during a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
of racially charged rhetoric, and tensions have flared anew with his recent criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, whom the president-elect called “all talk” and “no action.”
Bernice King avoided a detailed critique of Trump, but said the nation has a choice between “chaos and community,” a dichotomy her father preached about. “At the end of the day, the Donald Trumps come and go,” she said, later adding, “We still have to find a way to create ... the beloved community.”
The current Ebenezer pastor, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, did not call Trump by name, but
praised his predecessor. “Thank you, Barack Obama,” he said. “I’m sad to see you go.”
In South Carolina, speakers at a state Capitol rally said minority voting power has never been more important and some attendees expressed unease about Trump joining forces with Republican congressional majorities.
“It’s going to be different, that’s for sure,” said Diamond Moore, a Benedict College senior who came to the Capitol. “I’m going to give Trump a chance. But I’m also ready to march.”
In New York, Martin Luther King III told reporters that Trump pledged Branden Camp / Associated Press
to be a president for all Americans, but King III added “we also have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure” because “it doesn’t happen automatically.”
Trump did not participate publicly in any Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances.
President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama took part in a service project at a shelter in Washington.
Back in Atlanta, Sen. Bernie Sanders brought the Ebenezer assembly to its feet with his reminder that King was not just an advocate for racial equality, but a radical proponent for economic justice — a mission that put him at odds with the political establishment.
“If you think governors and senators and mayors were standing up and saying what a great man Dr. King was, read history, because you are sorely mistaken,” roared Sanders, who invoked the same themes from his failed presidential campaign.
Sanders, who struggled to attract black voters in his Democratic primary fight with Hillary Clinton, recalled King opposing the Vietnam War as exploiting the poor. He also noted King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he’d gone to rally striking sanitation workers, white and black.
Activist priest Michael Pfleger, himself a self-described radical, built on Sanders’ message with a 45-minute keynote message indicting the nation’s social and economic order, which he said would get worse under Trump.
The Chicago priest said “white hoods” of the Klan “have been replaced by three-piece suits.” He bemoaned high incarceration rates, a “militarized, stop-and-frisk police state,” profligate spending on war and a substandard education system.
Pfleger said many Americans too quickly dismiss violence in poor neighborhoods as the fault of those who live there, when the real culprit is a lack of opportunity and hope.