In a rousing speech that brought a packed house to its feet, the Rev. Natalie Wimberly last night challenged the North Fork community to reclaim and move forward the moral vision of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“All that has he envisioned has not yet been done,” Wimberly said to the crowd gathered at the Church of the Redeemer in Mattituck for a celebration of the slain civil rights leader’s life, hosted by the Southold Anti-Bias Task Force and led by task force co-chairperson Valery Shelby.
Wimberly, pastor of Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church in Greenport and the keynote speaker at the event, made an impassioned appeal for cooperation, acceptance and action to fulfill King’s dream.
She called for people to become morally active to help create a culture of openness and acceptance.
“We must be open and receptive to human differences and not only be tolerant, but to accept,” Wimberly told the crowd.
“We don’t live in a small box anymore. Our world is expanding and growing larger every day. We cannot be content with what our neighborhoods used to look like because on a daily basis, they’re shifting and they’re changing. They don’t look like what they used to,” she said.
“We must continue to call for cooperation between people of different faiths, of different cultural backgrounds, of political persuasions, of sexual orientation so that we can create an ethical ideal of a beloved community,” said Wimberly.
“You know what? There’s room for everybody,” she declared.
“Take the lead to forging peace,” Wimberly urged those in attendance. “We’ve got to stop sitting on our hands and do something about bringing peace to the world that we live in. What kind of world are we going to hand off to our children? We’ve got to work to reclaim Dr. King’s legacy of moral vision.”
She concluded with a question to all those in attendance. “What are you going to do from this day forward? What are you going to do? You gotta get your hands to the plow, you gotta put some shoes on your feet that allow you to work. Hear the vision. But also, hear each other. My story is just as important as your story. And your journey is as important to me as my journey ought to be to you. We’ve got to find that common ground.”
“We’re in this thing together.”
The Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church choir, accompanied by Ted Turpin of Southampton, provided music at the annual MLK Day celebration, which was well-attended by a broad cross-section of the community, and included remarks by local religious and political leaders.
SoutholdLOCAL photos by Katharine Schroeder
