2019 Freedom Breakfast Speaker Calls for Continuation of Work on King's "Unfinished Business"
December 14, 2018
Martin Luther King Jr. ended his most famous speech by talking about a dream, but
he began that same speech by talking about America's unfinished business. The Rev. Raphael Gamaliel Warnock, senior pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist
Church in Atlanta, encouraged attendees at the 14th annual Martin Luther King Jr.
Freedom Breakfast Jan. 13 to take on that work.
"Dr. King loved Schubert's unfinished symphony. It is a classic, but unlike most symphonies,
it only has two movements," Warnock said. "If you think about it, all of our lives
are like an unfinished symphony. We die with a project unfinished. While we celebrate
his work, let us not cash in the dream for
sentimental memories. He understood that this work builds one block upon another."
The breakfast commemorates the life of the late civil rights leader and honors the
exemplary community service work of individuals in Athens and the university community.
The event, held at the Grand Hall of the Tate Student Center, is sponsored by UGA,
the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government and the Clarke County School District.
Warnock told the estimated 600 people in attendance that "we must become allergic
to bigotry."
He also reiterated the importance of investing in people, particularly children, calling
them "the most important resource we could ever have."
At the breakfast, UGA also recognized four people who are taking steps to promote
equality and justice.
Elizabeth Louis, a doctoral candidate in psychology; Barbara McCaskill, professor
of English and co-director of the Civil Rights Digital Library Initiative; and Fred
O. Smith and Lee E. Zimmerman Smith, co-founders of the Creative Visions Foundation,
received the President's Fulfilling the Dream Award for their efforts to make King's
dream of equality and justice a reality.
Louis works as a graduate assistant in UGA's Office of Inclusive Excellence. Her research
interests include ethnic minority and immigrant mental health and trauma; the influence
of culture, religion and spirituality in coping with traumatic experiences; and disaster
mental health and humanitarian psychosocial interventions.
McCaskill, who has been on the UGA faculty for 25 years, helped develop and implement
the English department's Multicultural American literature curriculum. She has published
four books and scores of essays and book chapters on African-American literature and
literary subjects. In the Athens community, she has taught classes about the literature
and film of the civil rights movement for UGA's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
The Smiths have been active in many organizations. In 1989, they started the Creative
Visions Foundation, a community-based nonprofit organization that provided after-school,
weekend and summer educational enrichment to Athens-area youth. In 2012, they created
the first Athens Area Black History Bowl, aimed at connecting youth to their history
through questions specifically about local and regional African-American history.
In addition, Kerry Miller, Mary Diallo and Harold Black, the first African-Americans
to enroll at UGA as freshmen, were recognized at the breakfast on the 50th anniversary
of their graduation as part of the Class of 1966 (see "First African-Americans to
enroll at UGA discuss undergrad experience").
The Freedom Breakfast and the President's Fulfilling the Dream Awards are coordinated
by the UGA Office of Inclusive Excellence.
By Krista Richmond