First King Spirit Award goes

| Monday, January 15, 2007

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to bishop for ‘unity in diversity’

By Mary Garrigan, Journal staff

RAPID CITY — With his church choir raising the rafters in exuberant song behind him, Bishop Lorenzo Kelly accepted the first King Spirit Award during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration Monday at Faith Temple Church in Rapid City.

Kelly echoed the choir’s refrain of “I am a Friend of God,” after he received the engraved plaque from Keith Schulte of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Rapid City.

“He calls me friend,” Kelly said. Kelly spoke of God’s love during the health crisis he faced a year ago after being hospitalized for an aneurysm of the thoracic aorta. A thinner, frailer Kelly then told a crowd of about 200 people his story of applying for a banking job in the 1960s.

“I am a recipient of the civil-rights movement,” Kelly, the first black man to be hired by a bank on Chicago’s North Shore, said.

Schulte said the decision to make Kelly the first recipient of the King Spirit Award was an easy one. The Baha’i faith has celebrated a Race Unity Day since 1953, and the local award will become an annual event. Kelly, who pastors the multi-ethnic church, was chosen as a local example of dedication to “unity in diversity and the oneness of humankind” but also for his “strength of conviction and his gentleness,” Schulte said.

Mayor Jim Shaw said Rapid City’s noon-hour service commemorating King’s birth was especially appropriate, given that King was born at noon on Jan. 15, 1929. This year’s holiday came on the day King would have turned 78. King was assassinated while standing on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.

This was also the first King holiday after the death of his widow, Coretta Scott King, who died Jan. 31.

Cold temperatures and a street construction project that eliminated parking in front of the Kansas City Street church may have contributed to a slightly smaller crowd at this year’s service.

Rebecca Crosswait of Rapid City makes it a point to honor King’s holiday by attending the service each year. “I think this is good for Rapid City,” Crosswait said.

Four-year-old Josie Fritz was attending her first MLK Day service with her mother, Tanya. Josie learned about King at preschool this year, her mother said.

“She came home and talked about his dream of little white children and little black children going to school and playing together,” Fritz said. “I think having a child has made me more aware of the importance of recognizing the holiday.”

Elder Lawrence Cliette of Faith Temple preached about King’s life and message, and urged Rapid Citians to continue the progress in race relations that King began.

“The way has been paved, and we have come too far to turn back now,” Cliette said.

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8410 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com