MLK Prayer: King’s legacy remembered, challenges continue

A prayer breakfast celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. presented reminders that the United States continues its struggle to travel the road blazed by the civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968 at the age of 39.
About 100 people gathered at the Southeast Neighborhood Center in Eunice Saturday morning for the fourth annual prayer breakfast.
The celebration of King’s birthday, Jan. 15, continues with a parade today in Eunice.
The parade lineup begins at the Eunice City Hall parking lot at 1 p.m. and it rolls at 2 p.m. The parade will proceed on Maple Avenue to Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, turn on Anne Street near Golden Star Baptist Church and end at New Zion Baptist Church for a 3 p.m. program.
The guest speaker will be attorney Josie Frank.
The theme of the Eunice celebration is, “What are we doing for others?”
On Saturday, the Rev. Eddie Castor Jr., pastor of St. Luke Baptist Church, was the main speaker at the prayer breakfast.
“Dr. King was all about doing for others,” Castor said.
“What are you doing for others, now?” Castor asked about 100 people in attendance at the breakfast.
“Dr. King was a great man in our country’s history because he fought to get equal rights not only for blacks but for the whites as well,” he said.
Castor explained that King came to realize America’s problem ran deeper than Jim Crow laws that made segregation an institution that King challenged.
Castor talked about his “conversation” with King where he reported to civil rights leader about current events.
Among those events was the election of Barack Hussein Obama as president and the disrespect shown the first black president, which has included questioning his birth place.
Castor decried the violence in Ameirca and how it is often depicted as a problem primarily in black communities.
“Dr. King our blacks are still killing our blacks,” he said.
Castor said 93 percent of the blacks killed are killed by blacks, but added 83 percent of the whites killed are killed by whites.
“We are killing each other Dr. King,” he said.
“We ain’t there yet as a people,” Castor said.
Jack Burson, Eunice alderman at-large,said King was murdered in Memphis where he was supporting sanitation department workers seeking better pay and working conditions.
Burson noted his father was a union leader and the struggle for unions continues.
Burson also said there have been successes such as when 11 whites and 11 blacks in Eunice agreed to a plan to desegregate schools.
“We can’t change the world, but we can continue to change our community,” he said.
“Unfortunately, as so often happens, the people that need to hear the messages we’ve heard from these ministers this morning, are not with us,” he said.
Many of today’s societal problems are the result of the breakdown in families and the lack of attendance at Sunday morning worship services, he said.