The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
SHARING MLK’S MESSAGE
Lake County NAACP MLK Day of Service & Celebration held at Lake Erie College
Despite the snowy blast of winter weather Northeast Ohio received Jan. 15, hundreds and hundreds braved the area’s roadways to pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. Jan. 15 at the Lake County Branch NAACP’s MLK Day of Service and Celebration.
It’s the second consecutive year the event was held at Morley Music Hall on the campus of Lake Erie College in Painesville — something organizers agree has helped boost attendance due to the college’s central location for many attendees.
“It’s amazing,” said Lake County NAACP President Albert Jones shortly before the program began. “It’s really amazing to see this many people come to an MLK program in Lake County, Ohio. It’s amazing to see these two schools come together as a choir. This is nothing but positive, positive, positive.”
Lake Erie College President Brian Posler said he’s glad the Lake County NAACP and Lake Erie College have partnered in presenting the program and said shortly before it began the two entities plan to make it a tradition well into the future.
“It makes me really proud that Lake Erie College gets to host this amazing thing here again this year,” Posler said. “We love being in partnership with the NAACP.”
As the program got underway, emcee David Moody, retention and advising specialist at Lake Erie College, talked a
little about the theme of this year’s event: Renewing a Spirit of Empowerment.
“A few days ago, when I got the program and, I looked at the title on the front and the quote (appearing there) from one of Dr. King’s books — Where do We go from Here: Chaos or Community: ‘We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools,” Moody said, adding that King in his book pointed out that “There is not even any common language when the term equality is
used. The Negro and the white have a fundamentally different definition...”
Moody continued: “So, I know, for me at least — I can’t speak for you — one of the things I’m going to reflect on , as this program goes on, and as I make my way home, is: How do I define equality?”
Following Moody’s observations, 2017 Lake Erie graduate Sam Mutemwa, a native of Johannesburg, South Africa, gave a welcome address to the crowd before the combined Harvey and Riverside high school choirs performed to thunderous applause.
A winning essay by Fairport Harding High School
ninth-grader, Maya Hess, entitled Hope for the Future was read by its author.
Two Fairport Harbor eighth-graders — Giovani Coraretti and Olivia HogeMassengill — read a poem about King by Coraretti and Lake NAACP board member and Lake Erie alum Marsita Ferguson gave a speech about King’s meaning in her life.
Posler followed that up with his own speech about the strides — and challenges — that lie ahead and Jones closed out the event by thanking everyone involved and inviting the crowd to give itself a round of applause.