Pottstown’s first King service focuses on economic injustice

POTTSTOWN — All too often, each service commemorating the memory and legacy of civil rights icon Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his most famous speech at the March of Washington – the “I have a dream”. it is called so often.

But that was not the case on Sunday, when the 16th annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at First Presbyterian Church, celebrating a less benevolent and more activist portrait of King. By coincidence, or as Rev. Zach Jackson calls coincidences—“God says hello”—the speakers focused on a less quoted but more poignant text by King: “Letters from a Birmingham Jail.”

Written on April 16, 1963, while King was languishing, as the title suggests, in a jail cell after being arrested for his civil disobedience activities in this most segregated city, a newspaper was smuggled into him carrying a letter to the US included Editor.

The letter “A Call for Unity” was a statement by eight white Alabama ministers against King and his methods. The clergy agreed that social injustices existed, but argued that the fight against segregation should be fought exclusively in the courts and not on the streets. Her letter said African Americans should wait patiently while these battles are fought out in court.

King disagreed, and this now-famous letter was his answer.

“I must confess that I have been very disappointed in the white moderates over the last few years,” King wrote, quoting Jackson, co-pastor of the Open Table United Church of Christ, as the Sunday service drew to a close. “I have almost come to the unfortunate conclusion that the great stumbling block of the Negro on his way to liberty is not the White Citizen Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the moderate White who is more concerned with ‘order’. as dedicated to justice; who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice,” King wrote.

Coincidentally, Pottstown School District superintendent Stephen Rodriguez also focused largely on the text, he said, because his daughter, who was working on a paper on the subject, had brought it to the fore. He focused on the part of King’s response that described him and his activities as “extremist.”

“You speak of our activities in Birmingham as extreme,” King wrote. “At first I was quite disappointed that other clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. … But although I was initially disappointed at being labeled an extremist, as I thought about the matter further I gradually gained some satisfaction from the designation…. Wasn’t Amos an extremist for justice: ‘Let justice flow like water and justice like an ever-flowing river.’”

“If you Dr. Call King an extremist, you must call Amos an extremist – for justice,” Rodriguez said. “If you Dr. Call King an extremist, then you must call Jesus an extremist – for love.”

Roberta Kearney, the new First Presbyterian pastor, reminded the 75 or so attendees that King stood up and spoke out against “racism, materialism and militarism.”

King spoke up and protested on behalf of the poor. In fact, his last attempt before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968 was the “Poor’s Campaign,” which centered on the idea that all people should have what they need to survive. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference shifted their focus to these issues after realizing that civil rights gains had not improved the material living conditions of many African Americans.

That’s where Kenneth Lawrence Jr., vice chairman of the Montgomery County Commissioners, addressed his comments on Sunday. Lawrence, who said he had one year left in his term and was not seeking re-election, told the crowd he would spend this year speaking out on economic injustice.

He started by taking on the Food Stamp Challenge, trying to make a living on the $4.20 a day the government provides per person. “I had my meal prepped and thought I could do it. But the second night I woke up in so much pain I thought I had appendicitis or a heart attack. And then I realized I was hungry, really hungry for the first time in my life,” Lawrence said.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lawrence said statistics showed that “there were 100,000 people in Montgomery County who didn’t have enough to eat, and the majority of them were people of color.”

He also described coming out to the district workers around midnight in February during a “time count,” a survey of the homeless population. When they joined the group in Norristown, “They walked over to the Dannehower Bridge, which I walk across all the time, and we yelled if anyone was under it, and a woman comes out like we knocked on her front door. At any given time in Montgomery County, 400 people are sleeping homeless,” Lawrence said.

“It’s not a Pottstown problem. This is not a Norristown problem. This is a national issue. There are 62 municipalities in Montgomery County and all of them have vulnerable people. These people are our neighbors, they are people. We all have to do more,” he said.

“If we don’t care for the lowest of us, we can’t be the best of us,” Lawrence said, quoting King’s famous credo: “Life’s most persistent and pressing question is, ‘What do you do for others? ‘”

“Words don’t say as much as actions. Action is what it’s all about,” said State Assemblyman Joe Ciresi, D-146th Dist. A necessary measure, he said, is increasing funding for people who could access government feeding and housing programs and raising the minimum wage.

“Some of the guidelines for these programs were written in the ’80s and we haven’t changed the amounts,” he said. “And think about how much eggs cost today. You can’t live on $12,000 a year.”

Ciresi added, “We have an epidemic called homelessness that we have to fight,” he said, estimating that there are about 100 people in Pottstown alone who don’t have a place to live.

He told the audience about a 75-year-old woman who had come to his office for help. “For two days we tried every program we could find to help her. We got a sleeping bag and a tent. Nobody wants to be homeless. It’s not a choice, it’s something that happens to you.”

One action that took place immediately was the raising of $1,120 from the day’s offerings, which was donated to Beacon of Hope, a nonprofit that helps the homeless and plans to build a 40-bed homeless shelter in the county.

On behalf of Beacon of Hope, Susan Lloyd accepted the donation from Ross, President of the Pottstown Department of Faith organizations organizing the Sunday service. “We couldn’t do what we do without the support of the community,” she said. “Nothing will stop us from our work.”

King, Ross said, “fought for equality and protection for all. I say Pottstown the time has come to do the right thing.”