A South Carolina pastor delivered a fiery speech on civil rights during a Santa Maria celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, highlighting America’s “tremendous promise” made via five key words — “liberty and justice for all.”
Those words don’t include clauses for exceptions based on skin color or gender, the Rev. Nelson Rivers III, a South Carolina pastor, said Sunday at an MLK Day observance.
“All means all,” Rivers said.
The two-hour observance included dance, music and more at the Boyd Concert Hall in the Allan Hancock College Fine Arts Complex.
Approximately 75 people attended the Sunday afternoon event organized by NAACP’s Santa Maria-Lompoc Branch.
Rivers, vice president of religious affairs and external relations at the National Action Network and pastor of Charity Missionary Baptist Church in North Charleston, South Carolina, gave a blunt speech that drew applause, laughter and agreement from audience members.
He praised local NAACP leader Lawanda Lyons-Pruitt’s selection of the event’s theme — “’The Fierce Urgency of Now’ because that is exactly where we are.”
“And if you don’t understand how urgent it is, you are not paying attention,” Rivers said.
Purposely swapping two letters to avoid a curse word, he declared “America’s in a mell of a hess right now.”
“And it’s not going to get better because we don’t like it. It will only get better if we do something about it,” Rivers added.
He expressed gratitude that in California “diversity is not a curse word” and that the state embraces differences.
Rivers also called out hypocrisy he sees in other areas of the country and some who considered themselves Christian.
“There should be no distance between what you say and what you do,” he said.
The event included several members of Black Student Union chapters from Santa Maria Valley high schools and Hancock.
Rivers and Hancock Superintendent/President Kevin Walthers both highlighted the younger people in attendance at Sunday’s event.
“This group of young people, the GenZ group and even the Millennials, are the most compassionate, smartest and hard-working generation I have ever seen, and I believe with all my heart that they are going to be our salvation,” Walthers said.
“They are where we going, not where we are,” Rivers later said. “Because of that, they embrace difference. They celebrate that not everybody looks like them or talks like them or acts like them.”
“Because of that, America has hope that those who run the nation now will not be running it very long,” Rivers said.
More MLK Day events are planned Monday around Santa Barbara County with observances including marches and programs.
In Santa Barbara, the celebration will include a program from 9 to 10 a.m. at De La Guerra Plaza, 20 E. De La Guerra St., followed by a Unity March up State Street starting at 10 a.m.
The march will end at the site of the program planned from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Arlington Theatre, 1317 State St. Leah Weber King, widow of Dexter Scott King and daughter-in-law of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King, is set to serve as the keynote speaker.
In Lompoc, the celebration also will include a march starting at 9:15 a.m. Monday at Grace Temple Missionary Baptist Church, 201 South H St. and ending at the Dick DeWees Community & Senior Center, 1120 W. Ocean Ave.
The annual program, planned between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., typically includes speeches, music and more to honor the late civil rights leader’s dream and aspirations for social and economic justice.