‘Tighten your belts and dry your tears’
The commitment to MLK’s unfinished work remains strong even 50 years after the assassination.
NORTH CHAPEL
Glenise Young Cordell
Mrs. Glenise Young Cordell, age 73, of Armuchee, passed away on Friday, March 30, 2018, at her residence.
Mrs. Cordell was born on June 9, 1944, in the home of her parents in Pine Log, Ga., daughter of Mamie Lucille Edmonson Young and the late Joe Young. She attended West Rome High School and married in 1960. Prior to retirement in 2010, Mrs. Cordell was an aide in the healthcare field for over 50 years. She was a great cook who enjoyed feeding people, efficient and avid cleaner, and loved to grow and cultivate flowers. In addition to her father, Mrs. Cordell was preceded in death by a brother, R. L. Young; sister, Janie Crosby; sister-in-law, Charlene Young.
Survivors include her mother, Lucille Edmonson Young, Rome; three children, Telisa Chapman (Mark), Rome, Darlene Shore (Tommy Roberts), Armuchee, Ray Floyd, Armuchee; seven grandchildren, Hanna Everett (Brandon), Rome, Savanna Knight (Joe), Lindale, Mattie Chapman, Jacksonville, Ala., Holly Shore Ozment (Ben), Summerville, Heather Shore (Glenn Norman), Cedartown, Chris Floyd (Liz), Rome, Chad Floyd, Armuchee; two brothers, Bobby Young (Joan), Gordonsville, Tenn., Jimmy Young, Rome; brother-inlaw, JR Crosby, Calhoun; several nieces and nephews.
Funeral services will be held on Tuesday, April 3, 2018, at 6:00 PM, in the Chapel at Henderson & Sons Funeral Home, North Chapel, with Pastor Dan Hyde officiating and the eulogy given by her daughter, Telisa Chapman. Inurnment will follow in at a later date in Oak Hill Baptist Church Cemetery in Rydal, Ga.
The family will receive friends at Henderson & Sons Funeral Home, North Chapel, on Tuesday from 5 p.m. until the funeral hour.
In lieu of flowers, the family respectfully requests memorial donations be made to Floyd Springs Baptist Church Building Fund, 1869 Floyd Springs Road, Armuchee, Ga., 30105.
Henderson & Sons Funeral Home, North Chapel, has charge of the arrangements.
ATLANTA — Tyrone Brooks was 22 years old and 400 miles away, seeking clues to an unsolved lynching as old as he was, when he got the news that Martin Luther King Jr. was dead. Stunned, Brooks dropped everything and drove to Memphis, crying all the way.
The next day, King’s closest confidant, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, told Brooks: “Tighten your belts and dry your tears. If you love Martin Luther King as you say you do, help me carry on his work.”
The members of King’s tight circle barely paused to grieve. They plunged into carrying out his unfinished work, and turned it into a lifelong vow.
Some went into politics. A few continued to serve the organization that King led or started their own. Others returned to the pulpit, preaching a gospel of racial liberation.
And the King legacy continues, evident today in a new generation protesting many of the same issues King confronted : inequality, police brutality and poverty.
“Legally, segregation was outlawed, but we still face a danger in public space,” said Bree Newsome, who climbed a pole to snatch down the Confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse in 2015. “In that way, I absolutely feel that what we’re doing is continuing in the legacy of Martin Luther King.”
Even so, the problems persist. A poll by the Associated Press-NORC
The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy is among those close members of Martin Luther King Jr’s tight circle who still carry on his unfinished work as part of a lifetime commitment.
Center for Public Affairs Research found only 1 in 10 African Americans think the United States has achieved all or most of the goals of the civil rights movement. Among whites, only 35 percent believe those goals have been at least mostly achieved.
“A lot of people across the country see injustice or inequality as unfortunate, almost like a car accident, instead of unjust and something they have to do something about,” said Rashad Robinson, 39, who uses King’s example as a guide in his work as File, Lou Krasky / AP
executive director of the online civil rights group Color of Change. “People talk a lot about empathy, but King was really building power. Power is the ability to change the rules, and Dr. King was all about changing the rules.”
Jesse Jackson parlayed his service at King’s side into a blend of grassroots activism and elective politics. Through aggressive voter registration, Jackson assembled a base of support patterned after the “beloved community” King envisioned for America.