2021 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration

M O U N T

M E R C Y

U N I V E R S I T Y

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY

Celebration Monday, January 18 | 10:00 AM View on Mount Mercy’s YouTube channel

ORDER OF SERVICE Welcome.................................................................................Keesha Burke-Henderson Director of Diversity & International Student Success

Opening Prayer..........................................................................Sister Linda Bechen ’74 Vice President for Mission & Ministry

Student Reflection..........................................................................RoyShawn Webb ’21 Music................................................Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson Zach Gignac Speaker...................................................................................Sister Cora Marie Billings Sister of Mercy

Student Reflections...............................................Emma Lantz ’22 and Tiara Munoz ’23 Student Government Association Leadership

Service Opportunities.................................................................................... Cara Reilly Coordinator of Volunteerism & Service

Closing Prayer.......................................................................................... Michael Beard Campus Minister

LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING Often called “The Black National Anthem,” this song was written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and then set to music by his brother, John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) in 1899. It was first performed in public in the Johnsons’ hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, as part of a celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday on February 12, 1900 by a choir of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal. (Source: NAACP) Lift ev’ry voice and sing, ‘Til earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the list’ning skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on ’til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, ‘Til now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who has brought us thus far on the way; Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where met thee, Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand.

True to our God. True to our native land.

SISTER CORA MARIE BILLINGS, RSM In 1956, Sister Cora Marie became the first African American woman to enter the Mercy community in Merion, Pennsylvania. Among her many milestones, she was the first African American sister to teach in a Catholic high school in Philadelphia and the first African American sister to lead a Catholic parish in the United States. Sister Cora Marie also spent 25 years leading the Office for Black Catholics in the Diocese of Richmond. In 1968, she was the founding member of the National Black Sisters’ Conference, and in 1991 was presented with the organization’s Harriet Tubman Award in recognition of the advocacy for the African American community through her pastoral ministry. Sister Cora Marie has devoted her life to the service of others, working as a teacher, community leader, and tireless advocate for racial equality and social justice. (Sources: sistersofmercy.org and mercymidatlantic.org)

SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES JANUARY 18, 2021

Please join the coMMUnity in helping area non-profits. Masks are required, and a limited number of slots are available for the safety of volunteers. Socially-distant transportation will be provided to the two off-campus locations. Sign up!

11:15 AM–1:00 PM | UC COMMONS Stop by anytime to help bundle and package diapers for the Eastern Iowa Diaper Bank and Young Parents Network.

1:00–3:30 PM | CATHERINE MCAULEY CENTER Work in the food pantry and help move furniture within the building. Meet in the Chapel lounge at 12:40 PM for transportation.

3:30–5:30 PM | JANE BOYD Help prepare classrooms for the children in their before and after school program. Meet in the Chapel lounge at 3:10 PM for transportation.

REFLECTIONS NATE KLEIN ’07 Vice President for Student Success “Anybody can be great, because anybody can serve.” (MLK Jr.) Two months prior to Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, he preached the “Drum Major Instinct” to people of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, as he spoke about the Civil Rights Movement for justice. In this quote, he spoke of the new greatness, which is to serve. Our name is Mercy, our spirit is compassion. It is in this foundation within the Catholic church, the heritage of the Sisters of Mercy, and our own walk here on the Hill since 1928 that we have committed ourselves to service above self. Each of us working here and learning here has a privilege many do not—not just throughout the world, but right here in our own community. Dr. King called for this day to not necessarily be a day off, but to be a day on—in service to better the lives of others. We are excited for this prayer service that brings us together and for the opportunity afterwards to engage in service that benefits those within our community. Service is love in action, and it’s through that action that we will truly honor Dr. King who spent his life working to lift people up through service to be great themselves. As you reflect on the day today, ask yourself, “How will you be great? How will you serve others?”

SISTER LINDA BECHEN ’74 Vice President for Mission & Ministry Today serves not only as a remembrance of Martin Luther King but, more so, as a day of recommitment to his vision of justice and equality for all. This vision is not foreign to us as a Catholic Mercy university. We are rooted in the tenets of Catholic Social Teaching and are inspired by the Gospel and the example of Catherine McAuley, the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy. Like Martin Luther King, we also have a dream of a world in which justice and equality is the operative norm rather than an ideal to be pursued. Our work is not finished. Addressing racism is not relegated to another; it begins with me and us. The Critical Concern of antiracism expressed on the Sisters of Mercy website calls us to address “the unrecognized and unreconciled racism” present in our own systems and structures. This task is complex and deep and is both personal and structural. It calls us to a personal examination of our own prejudices and discriminatory actions. It further extends itself to look seriously at our own institutional racism and acknowledge our own complicity both individually and communally in oppressive systems and structures. People of white must be willing to not just listen but to hear and acknowledge the experience of people of color. As you recommit yourself today to the vision of justice and equality, what are you going to do to address racism personally … as an institution … within our world?

REFLECTIONS KEESHA BURKE-HENDERSON Director of Diversity & International Student Success In alignment with the Critical Concerns of anti-racism and non-violence, this prayer service is a call for action to the campus community to be a model of service, justice, and freedom. Martin Luther King Jr., as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, civil and social rights activist, and as part of a brave collective of men and women from across cultures, remains a symbol. His life is an enduring model of what it means to stand up to the all too pervasive challenges of ideological racial hierarchies, injustice, and economic inequality; let us remember the work is still yet in process. And as members of the Mercy community, we are obligated to not only be aware but to persist in good work. In the words of Catherine McCauley, “We should be shining lamps, giving light to all around us.”

WHAT MARTIN SAID “Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another.”

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

“We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.

This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

“There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.”

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”

“A lie cannot live.”

“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”

“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

“There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.”