The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s renowned “I Have a Dream” speech still reverberates for Rev. Carolyn Blair, more than six decades after the civil rights leader delivered the speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
But Blair, who is pastor of Zion United Church of Christ in Burlington, Iowa, cautioned that while the dream is “in full array for some, it’s sparse or even non-existent for others,” and cited a list of examples.
“Here in the wealthiest country on Earth, one in five children will go to bed hungry. 13 million American children live in poverty. We are the country with the highest percentage of incarceration in the world. The highest infant mortality rate among developed countries, and we are the only industrialized country not to guarantee healthcare as a basic human right,” she said.
Blair told the audience that filled Mt. Calvary Church of God in Christ to never give up hope of achieving Dr. King’s dream and to never let their spirit be broken.
“We can live out the dream, we can build a community, we can unite a nation because the God we serve is reviving us and working things out for us,” Blair said. “And through God’s love, God gives us all we need to make love beautiful and life meaningful.”
After the ceremony, Blair told TSPR that King believed we are all one and that we are here together to do great things together.
She said King believed God created us to be different so that we could share the beauty of those differences, and her hope is that people will take the time to talk to other people who are different than they are.
“Learn something new every day about somebody that you see and don’t know, and just have a conversation with them,” Blair said.
“We can love one another, and we can live together, and we can do great things together. St. Francis of Assisi says, ‘Make me an instrument of that peace.’ That’s a beautiful statement. It’s what all of us need to do. Be an instrument of peace. Share love. Share joy. Work for justice. Do good.”
Blair comes from a family of preachers. She originally wanted to perform musical theater on Broadway.
“But when God calls, you do what you are called to do,” she said.
Blair said when she grew up in the 1960s, her parents encouraged their children to always fight for equal justice, “And to always remember the scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Blair said the progress she has seen in her lifetime is now being whittled away. She said it’s painful to witness such setbacks. She said she had more rights growing up than her granddaughter has today.
“As a woman, if we’re still fighting for equal pay and being shoved into ways in which women don’t have a right to choose over their own body, that’s a right that we have to fight for that my granddaughter, who just turned 11, doesn’t have the right to do,” Blair said.
Blair’s motto, credited to Erma Bombeck, is, “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say ‘God! I used everything you gave me.’”
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