The diocese actively participated in this year's Knoxville-area celebration
of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.
An interfaith service on Jan. 14 kicked off the week of activities in the Knoxville area. The Rev. Al Minor represented Knoxville's Christian denominations in reading the lesson for the service.
The diocese filled a table of 10 at the MLK Leadership Awards Luncheon at the January 15 Leadership Awards luncheon at the Marriott Hotel. A number of other Episcopalians were represented in other groups. The Rev. Gayle Hansen Browne, priest-in-charge of St. Luke, was at the speaker's table to offer the invocation.
On January 19, the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday, nearly 30 people representing St. Luke, St. James, St. Elizabeth and the Episcopal School of Knoxville gathered at St. Luke, where they received a warm send-off from Bishop vonRosenberg and his wife, Annie, along with a special blessing from the bishop.
Then they marched two miles down M.L.King Avenue; some carried banners as they trekked to Greater Warner Tabernacle A.M.E. Zion Church where others joined them for the King Celebration Service. The weather was bitterly cold with the temperature hovering in the teens, but marchers had high spirits.
Mother Browne and Dr. Doris Scott Crawford, St. Luke's senior warden, also had put in long hours of service planning the events on the MLK Commemorative Commission of Greater Knoxville.
JOHNSON CITY: The Rev. Frank Cooper, rector at St. John's,
Johnson City, helped expand the annual Martin Luther King Jr. birthday
celebration to include diversity training and new learning experiences
for both youth and adults.
On the steering committee and in charge of 11-13-year-olds, Cooper worked with Adam Dickson, the head of the area Martin Luther King Jr. Literacy Day, and other community volunteers.
Seventeen adults and more than 40 children attended the conference "Prayer Produces Faith and Faith Produces Prayer" held at the Carver Recreation Center.
"I was very excited that this community event was planned by a multicultural committee, and that it was intergenerational," Cooper said.
Cooper's group, aided by his wife, Martha, fashioned origami cranes, symbols of peace and reconciliation, as concrete images of King's legacy of peace and nonviolence.
Adults attended a Prejudice Reduction Work-shop led by Dr. Martha Woodward, principal owner of Lifespring Educational Consultants, during which adults from many walks of life worked through the process of a unique model for diversity training. The model focuses on cerebral and interactive learning and self-understanding that leads to connectedness.
"Participants can take this knowledge to use in companies and classrooms. ... to keep alive a story of the past but to challenge participants to build a world based on nonviolence," said Woodward.
A 2003 General Con-vention resolution calls for all church leaders to complete diversity training.
CHATTANOOGA: On the day before what would have been
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 75th birthday, the Rev. Donald Swift stood
to lead a commemorative service at Grace Church, Chattanooga. He said
he felt some of the same feelings of frustration and confusion that he'd
experienced as a teenager in 1968 when the civil rights leader was shot
and killed.
"Despite all the social changes that have been made to end poverty, social injustice and discrimination, our hearts are where those changes actually must take place, where we begin to make a difference," said Swift, who is pastor of Stanley United Methodist Church in Chattanooga. "If we're failing to rid ourselves of the evil of poverty and hunger, inadequate training and joblessness, then our hearts are still not in the right place."
Swift made his sermon remarks at a multi-congregational service on January 14 to honor King's memory and accomplishments.
Also participating in the service were the Rev. James Moss, pastor of Westside Baptist Church; the Rev. Paul McDaniel, pastor of Second Missionary Baptist Church; and Grace Episcopal's rector the Rev. Gene Smitherman, who welcomed the Wednesday-night gathering of nearly 100 people. Grace hosts the event each year, and Jane Pickering served as this year's coordinator for the service. Dinner preceded the event.
Swift said he believed that if King were alive today, "He would have to conclude that we had regressed. ... There is a tendency for those on top to look down on the valley of people below, so that these people can be ruled by the ones above. But we are on this upward climb together. ... We're tired, but we can never stop, we must never stop what we've started."
Also in Chattanooga, 60-70 St. Nicholas School pupils and adults used the holiday as an opportunity for community service.
Students selected a volunteer site and the type of service they wished to provide. Some cleaned toys and decorated bulletin boards at the Chambliss Shelter/Children's Home; others unpacked books at the North Chattanooga Reading Center; some collected trash in Heritage Park; some read to and played games with elderly residents of Morning Pointe Assisted Living Center and sewed on buttons. A group of parents donated blood.
"It was such a great day," said Barbara Dawkins of the St. Nicholas staff.
R.C. Gray contributed to the Chattanooga report.
