W. Franklyn Richardson Call For Consciousness Awakening
Rev. Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson calls for consciousness awakening.
New York, NY – The Reverend Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, pastor of the 4,000 member Grace Baptist Church in Mt. Vernon, NY, called for a consciousness awakening to focus attention on the need to apply Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy to current context. In a keynote message on January 16, 2011 at New York City’s Riverside Church, Rev. Dr. Richardson said, “…If all we have come here to do today is to reflect and sing and pray and rehearse speeches, this occasion will fall short of relevance. The only way that this gathering, this celebration can be relevant is if we take time to apply the message and life and values of Martin Luther King, Jr. to our present context; to our present dilemma in America, to our present challenges that we face as a nation…” Change, like the change Dr. King’s life represents, will not come he warned, “If we come simply to bow at the altar of Martin Luther King’s life without picking up an interpretation of how to apply his life to the circumstances and conditions that we face in the present moment.”
Forty-four years earlier on April 4, 1967, recounted Riverside Church in its written Festival Service program, Dr. King “gave one of his bravest and most important speeches,” at the church. A speech, the church wrote, that “broadened his scope from civil rights to economic rights, from domestic policy to voicing his conscience on foreign affairs. It is sobering to think what he might have accomplished.”
Grace Baptist Church children share what they have learned in Children Church with Pastor Richardson
What is even more sobering, Dr. Richardson pointed out, is the 2011 Children’s Defense Fund Report on The State of American Children. “In that report it says 40% of black children will be born in poverty, 85% of 4th graders cannot read or count and half of them will drop out of school before they graduate. Forty-three percent of black men are unemployed and boys born in 2001 are one to three times more likely to spend time in prison, black boys. So there is much that must be done. We cannot pause to celebrate our accomplishments, for two reasons, because there are those who are busy and bent on retarding progress and turning the clock back and taking away the gains. So we cannot pause long to celebrate.”
Reverend Richardson has been pastor of Grace Baptist Church for almost 36 years. He is chairman of the boards of National Action Network, The Conference of National Black Churches, Virginia Union University and President Emeritus of United Black Clergy of Westchester, Inc.
Click link to view full message. NonProfitpal – Rev. Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson 2011 MLK Message at Riverside Church