Hundreds celebrate life of Dr. King

Black people have made definitive and obvious advances in the years since the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but there is far to go, and problems still exist, a popular former Suffolk preacher said in a special ceremony Monday.

Noting the “atrocity” of the Eric Garner death in New York and the “ignorance” of the Michael Brown death in Ferguson, Mo., Dr. Mark A. Croston Sr. said, “The truth is, we’ve still got a lot of trouble in the city.”

Croston retired from a 26-year post as pastor of Suffolk’s East End Baptist Church in 2013 to take a position as national director for black church partnerships for Lifeway Christian Resources. He was back in town Monday as the keynote speaker at the Suffolk City-Wide Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration at Oak Grove Baptist Church on East Washington Street.

Croston closed out a long program that was, by turns, spiritual, political and social.

He drew from Genesis 26:17-18 for his sermon, noting that the scripture describes Isaac returning to the land of his father, Abraham, and reopening the wells Abraham’s enemies had closed up when Abraham had left that area.

“To realize the dream, you’ve got to dig your own well,” Croston said. “Some of us think that Martin Luther King’s dream is something you have to sit and wait for. Martin Luther King helped to dig some wells, but it just feels like today some of those wells are being stopped up.”

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, famously referred to his “dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Croston acknowledged progress toward achieving King’s dream, but he encouraged listeners to press on.

“In the ‘50s, we were sitting at the lunch counter,” he said to shouts of agreement. “In the ‘70s, we were working at the lunch counter. Today, we need to own the lunch counter!”

Monday’s program also presented an opportunity for the organizers of the event to present their annual Suffolk Community Service Award and their I Have a Dream Award.

The Community Service Award went to Benford Hunter Jr., a former employee of Planters Peanuts and the first black chairman of the Suffolk Democratic Party “for your efforts toward making dreams reality.”

The Genieve Shelter, which intervenes to help combat domestic abuse and the homelessness that can result from it, was the recipient of the I Have a Dream Award.

“I commend everyone at the Genieve Shelter for keeping a safe refuge in Suffolk,” said Reggie Carter, director of the Suffolk Unit of the Boys and Girls Club, which won the award last year.

Several hundred people packed the pews at Oak Grove Baptist for the program, which started at 10 a.m. following a march from nearby Tabernacle Baptist Church in which about 75 people walked arm-in-arm in rows down the center of the road, which police had blocked for the event.

Led by the Nansemond River High School marching band and by Linda Brown, president of the UAW 2426 retiree’s organization, which had helped set up the march, the group chanted slogans as they passed along the road.

“Black lives matter; all lives matter,” they chanted as the left the parking lot at Tabernacle.

Coming past Suburban Drive, they chanted “I can’t breathe,” Eric Garner’s complaint before he died after being placed in a chokehold by a NYPD during an arrest for selling illegal and untaxed cigarettes.

As participants chanted and marched, police cars followed the group to block traffic, stopping once to give a ride to an elderly participant who had stepped to the side of the road to rest, dropping out of the march.

Entering the Oak Grove parking lot, where King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was playing on loudspeakers from the back of a van, participants were chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot” and “Stop the violence.”