Lake County delegation to witness King monument dedication
By Judy Masterson jmasterson@stmedianetwork.com August 24, 2011 9:56PM
Members of the Greater Faith Baptist Church youth group will be making the bus trip to Washington, D.C., for the unveiling of the Martin Luther King monument. | Thomas Delany Jr~Sun-Times Media
For more information on this weekend’s dedication of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, visit www.dedicatethedream.org. To make a donation to help the Greater Faith Church contingent travel to the event, contact Pastor H. Lee Jordan at (847) 244-4400.
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Updated: October 24, 2011 12:17AM
Rev. H. Lee Jordan, pastor of Greater Faith Baptist Church in Waukegan, is too young to remember the history he is about to help commemorate.
He was born nearly a decade after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose life and work will be celebrated this weekend, culminating Sunday with the grand opening and dedication of a new monument on the National Mall in Washington D.C.
Jordan, 35, will lead a delegation of 40 from his church on a four-day pilgrimage to the event, which will include a chance for 30 local youth, ages 8-17, to participate in Dream Keepers, an activity aimed at helping them to spread King’s message and to live to their potential.
“I may be too young to remember Dr. King,” Jordan said. “But I’ve seen the effects of his ministry. I’ve seen it in the chance for advancement, the chance for an education, for equality and opportunity.”
The group is still working to raise the $15,000 cost of the trip. Their coach bus will depart late tonight.
Greater Faith member and lead organizer of the trip, Nancy Cruz, came of age at the height of Civil Rights unrest in the U.S. Born in Bermuda — her mother was a native of the island and her father was a U.S. sailor — her family moved stateside, to Savannah, Ga., in 1964,
“It was the worst time in the world to come to the U.S. as a young black girl with a British accent,” said Cruz, a resident of Lake Bluff. “It was hell. I was teased. I was beaten up. The caucasians in the South thought I was being uppity. The blacks in the South thought I was being uppity.”
The first time Cruz heard the “N” word, it flew out of the mouth of a white man who wanted her off his sidewalk.
“I thought he was mispronouncing my name,” Cruz said. “It’s a word never used on the island.”
While King was preparing to lay down his life, Cruz was preparing to live life beyond “the color thing we’ve created.”
“I explained to my daughter ‘times have changed,’” Cruz said. “Martin Luther King Jr. made it possible for people to open their eyes and see, to judge people for who they really are.”
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation is hosting the ceremony at the nation’s capital. Sunday is the 48th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and King’s historic “I Have A Dream” speech.
Davisha Reid, 11, of Waukegan, said she hopes to explore the history of the Civil Rights movement during the event.
“It happened so long ago,” Reid said. “To realize how hard it was for African Americans reminds me not to take my rights for granted.”
Ann Adams, 78, a retired North Chicago school teacher, is sending a grandson on the trip. She wishes she could go, she said.
“I loved to hear him speak, I loved to hear his voice,” Adams said of King. “It still affects me. Civil Rights. Freedom. It’s still a fight for people, for the underprivileged. It’s a never-ending battle.”
Jordan acknowledges that despite all that will be celebrated this weekend, challenges to equality persist.
“Our world is evolving,” he said. “The Bible says man born of a woman lives but a few days and those days are full of trouble.
“But Martin Luther King Jr. gives us hope — that even in a time of challenge or difficulty, if you take the initiative and work for change, God will bless your ability to do so.”
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