A minister speaking Sunday afternoon about the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. urged his Hopkinsville audience to view King’s civil rights message as a lesson for Christians.
“What good is it going through the routine, checking off the list and making photo opps so we can be in the newspaper to say, ‘Yeah, we celebrated Martin Luther King’s birthday,’ but after it’s all over we go back to a world that looks nothing like the dream …?” said the Rev. Cedric Cheatham.
“Martin Luther King did what he did, he wanted what he wanted because he believed it was what God wanted,” Cheatham told several dozen people who gathered for the MLK celebration at Cedar Grove Baptist Church on Second Street.
Cheatham, who is pastor of Princeton Street Baptist Church in Crofton, was the keynote speaker for the Sunday program sponsored by the NAACP’s Hopkinsville chapter.
The audience affirmed Cheatham’s message, clapping and offering shouts of “Amen,” and “All right now!” and “Lord, have mercy.”
He spoke about inequality and what justice should mean to Christians. Equity and fair treatment don’t begin in the courthouse, they begin in the sanctuary, he said.
“We deserve the same fairness, we deserve the same treatment that everybody deserves,” said Cheatham. “I don’t have to sit on the back of the bus. … I don’t have to drink from another water fountain. I don’t have to go to another bathroom because I know who I am … and I was made in God’s image, and I deserve justice.”
King wanted America to make good on its promise of equality, he said, adding the dream “has yet to come true.”
When the service concluded, several people came forward and gave donations for the NAACP’s college scholarship fund. Afterwards members of Pioneers Inc. served a chili supper in the church fellowship hall.
NAACP chapter president Terri Redwine said the group is planning a gala in April. More information will be announced later.
Weather cancellations
With a winter storm advancing on Hopkinsville, the event at Cedar Grove Baptist Church became the only local MLK observance for 2024. Organizers canceled a march and program at Hopkinsville Community College.
“Out of an abundance of caution, [the Human Rights Commission] has made the decision to cancel all MLK Day event,” Raychel Farmer, HRC’s executive director, said in a text message.
Farmer said HRC will announce the winners of its essay contest on the organization’s Facebook page. Anyone who planned to bring articles to HCC for the coat drive is asked to instead drop those off at the Salvation Army headquarters on Seventh Street.
This story was updated to include information about weather cancellations.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
