The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Church to celebrate MLK peace prize
Community members will gather to celebrate the anniversary of the MLK receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
Community members will gather Oct. 14 in Oberlin to celebrate the 54th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
The event will begin at 3:30 p.m. with a short march from Tappan Square to the First Church in Oberlin, 106 N. Main St., where the rest of the festivities will take place.
Rhys Price Jones, an organizer of the event, said the celebration stems from an event last year which drew more than 500 worshippers from different faiths gathered at the church to celebrate its 175th anniversary.
“It was a fantastic sight to see them all there,” Jones said. “It was really a very moving occasion.”
He said an organizing committee was formed to plan the follow up and they were searching for something to celebrate.
“It is the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, but nobody wants to celebrate that,” Jones said.
With this year being the 54th anniversary of King receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Jones said the committee chose the occasion because they would like to ask the questions: “What would King have to say to us now, 50 years after his death? Have we achieved anything? What have we achieved? Have we lived up to his expectations?”
The Rev. Stan Miller, pastor of Rust United Methodist Church in Oberlin and Wesley United Methodist Church in Lorain, and a member of the organizing committee, said the goal of the event is to get people talking about what is going on in the community.
“We’re going to do it by several ways,” Miller said. “First, we’re going to have an essay contest where the Oberlin Schools are going to participate in.”
They’ll also collect a community survey.
The question on that survey is “What do you wish your fellow community members knew about the everyday race and social struggles in Oberlin?”
Boxes to collect the completed surveys will be placed at Quick and Delicious Restaurant, 331 S. Main St.; Oberlin IGA, 331 E. Lorain St.; Ben Franklin, 13 W. College St.; Oberlin Community Service Center, 285 S. Professor St.; Community Meals, 162 S. Main St.; the Oberlin Public Library, 65 S. Main St.; and The Bridge, 82 S. Main St.
The event also will feature discussions, performances by combined choirs and praise dancers and speeches from keynote speakers including the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Jr., pastor of the historic Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in
Rhys Price Jones, an organizer of the event, said the celebration stems from an event last year which drew more than 500 worshippers from different faiths gathered at the church to celebrate its 175th anniversary.
Cleveland, who was a friend and colleague of King. Prester Pickett also will perform a reenactment of King’s acceptance speech after receiving the prize.