NEW BERN, N.C. (WITN) – The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. still echoes loudly, but with songs and brunch as dozens gathered at the Flame Banquet, celebrating his message of love and unity.
“It is still the message that rings throughout the world in which we live. It is needed, and it is necessary at this time more than ever,” Peletah Ministries Pastor Dawn Baldwin-Gibson said.
For many in the room, the celebration of Dr. King’s life and accomplishments hits especially close to home.
“In 1962, I went to a convention with SCLC, Southern Christian Leadership, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the president, and I went to Atlanta, Georgia, and met Rosa Parks,” civil rights activist Rev. Ethel Sampson said.
Sampson says she picketed during the civil rights movement in the 1960s and even met Dr. King himself.
She says seeing everyone still coming together decades later gives her hope, though she wonders if we’re truly better off today.
“Sometimes it seems like it regresses to me sometimes, but there are a lot of us who still have the dream,” Sampson said.
Pastor Baldwin Gibson joined the podium with other community and church leaders for the Martin Luther King’s Outreach Ministry’s memorial brunch to continue ringing Dr. King’s dream well beyond the mountain top.
“This is a great time for us to just come together and say, there is a more excellent way for us to move the needle forward. That moral arch is still bending, but it causes us to bend it, and we do that together,” Baldwin-Gibson said.
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