\u201cJesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists,\u201d wrote The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from the jail in Birmingham, Alabama.<\/p>\n
Snapping fingers affirmed this statement on Eastern Mennonite University on Friday, Jan. 13. Thirteen students, faculty and staff took turns reading the document in the President\u2019s Room as part of the 2017 MLK Jr. Celebration. Six other groups met simultaneously on campus, each reading a different letter, sermon or speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love his boldness,\u201d said junior Hannah Shultz, who attended the reading circle on the \u201cLetter from the Birmingham Jail.\u201d Shultz says that MLK, Jr.\u2019s differentiation between just and unjust laws, the latter which \u201cin good conscience, I cannot obey,\u201d struck her.<\/p>\n
The reading circles were just one of several activities during Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Week from Jan. 11-16.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s theme, \u201cFor Such a Time as This,\u201d comes from the Bible verse Esther 4:14, in which Esther\u2019s cousin Mordecai convinces the young queen to intervene on behalf of her persecuted people.<\/p>\n
Later that evening, 10 students helped prepare the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in preparation for Sunday\u2019s service. The church is in the historically black area of Harrisonburg known as the Northeast neighborhood, formerly known as \u201cNewtown.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the EMU community made its fifth annual sojourn to Tyrone Sprague\u2019s barber shop six stories above Court Square for \u201cBarbershop 101,\u201d a discussion about Harrisonburg\u2019s history of racial relations.<\/p>\n
Shultz also attended the Sunday service at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Newtown.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Spirit was moving through that small church in ways I have not seen before,\u201d said Shultz, a music education major who especially enjoyed the integration of the EMU Gospel Choir into the service. \u201cWhile The Rev. Dr. Chinita Richardson was preaching, the gospel choir musicians added music to emphasize what she spoke or agree with it. The life and energy that was produced filled the church and I had this sense of awe … I left the building encouraged to be the leper who returned to Jesus and thanked Him for the healing that changed his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAdditionally, we went to John Wesley United Methodist Church and set up tables, and centerpieces for Sunday’s community lunch which followed the church service,\u201d says Celeste Thomas<\/a>, the celebration committee co-chair and co-director of EMU\u2019s Multicultural Services.<\/p>\n
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