Today Ruby and I went to the annual Martin Luther King Jr. day rally and church service in Chapel Hill. We walked up to the post office where the towns rallies are usually held and listened to several local politicians, activists, pastors, students, and raging grannies. (The raging grannies are a group of liberal singing senior citizens. I never knew any liberal senior citizens before I moved to Chapel Hill… Wow.)
The highlight of my day was hearing Rev. Dr. William Barber II speak. Rev. Barber is the new president of the North Carolina conference of the NAACP. The theme of his sermon was “Silence is Betrayal”. It’s a quote from Martin Luther King’s speech at Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967. Dr. King was speaking out against an “unjust, evil and futile war” in Vietnam. Rev. Barber was speaking out against the “unjust, evil and futile war” in Iraq. The parallels between that time and now are scary. I’m so happy we have strong people to speak the truth. No matter how hard it is for some people to hear.
Bellow is a podcast Ruby and I recorded of our feelings of today events. Ruby has also blogged about it over at lotusmedia.org.
January 16 is now my favorite day of the year. I felt as if I might cry the whole time I was listening to Rev. Barber. Not tears of sadness but of relief that someone who could so eloquently and captivatingly tell all these people that WE MUST SPEAK UP!
MP3 13m 36s 6.3MB 64Kbps 44.1Mhz
