Nation honors Rev. Martin Luther King

Piedmont church celebrates life of civil rights leader
Michael A. Sawyers
Cumberland Times-News The Cumberland Times-News Mon Jan 17, 2011, 08:05 AM EST

— PIEDMONT, W.Va. — With all of the clapping, singing, amens and hallelujahs that would be expected within a Pentecostal church, the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was celebrated by about 100 people in downtown Piedmont Sunday.

Organized by the Tri-Towns Ministerial Association, the birthday celebration was hosted by the Rev. Bill O’Haver at the Piedmont Pentecostal Holiness Church on Second Street.

Area residents, some black, some white, nodded or uttered often as speakers and singers used the celebration to urge everyone to follow their individual light as did King.

“Martin Luther King earned God’s power,” O’Haver said. “He showed that he could be trusted, that he was not a quitter. Martin Luther King’s life encourages me that my life is important.”

Monday marks the 25th federal observance of the birth of King, whose words were often met with hate and resistance during one of the nation’s most turbulent and transformative eras. Today, King is one of the country’s most celebrated citizens and the only one to be honored with a national holiday who did not serve as a U.S. president.

King, who was born Jan. 15, 1929, was killed at age 39.

The gathering in Piedmont was energized by a rousing performance by Darnell and Lois Allen who led the group in songs such as “If You Live Right, Heaven Belongs to You” and “I’m a Soldier in the Army of the Lord.”

The Rev. Harry Coleman read some of King’s favorite scriptures, including those that encouraged the hate of evil and the love of what is right. “Let justice flow down like a stream,” Coleman read. “Let righteousnous flow like a river.”

The Rev. David Coleman provided a brief biography of King and noted that King “had the light.”

David Coleman said that each person has a light, “though some have been cracked or dulled or even burned out. It is up to each of us to show the light the way Dr. King did,” he said.

An offering taken up at the gathering will assist Tri-Towns area residents with emergency needs. During 2010, the fund helped 37 people and has been used already this year to assist five more, it was reported Sunday.

Legislation calling for a federal King holiday was introduced in Congress by U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan just four days after King’s April 4, 1968, assassination. Later that same year, Coretta Scott King, his widow, started The Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in the basement of the couple’s Atlanta home.

Contact Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com. The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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