Jordan Casson inspired the audience to reacher higher.
By Nancy Peckenham
“I bring to Newburgh a simple message of determination.” These were the words of Jordan Casson, a 27-year-old theology student and 2005 graduate of Newburgh Free Academy who came back on Wednesday night to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the 18th annual Celebrating the Dream program.
Casson’s passionate words inspired the audience of more than 100 people, many of them students, who applauded wildly as he challenged everyone to love themselves, turn away from violence and reach for greatness.
He spoke of his own childhood, raised on the edge of poverty by his mother and grandmother whom, he said, told him to “look always up…look always forward.” That determination led him to join the NAACP at age 14 and to be elected as youth chapter president in New York and Georgia. He earned a BA in philosophy at Morehouse College and is studying theology now at Emory University.
“If I can do it, you can do it,” he told the crowd, adding later, “then come back to Newburgh and help somebody else.”
Bernice Cosey-Pulley talked about growing up in segregated America.
Another great African-American leader addressed the gathering as well. Bernice Cosey-Pulley’s lifetime has spanned eight decades, beginning in rural Mississippi where she lived with no indoor plumbing or water, through the segregated days at Ohio State University to her current home in New Rochelle where she and her husband are leaders in racial and interfaith equality. A leader in the YWCA, Cosey-Pulley also has a master’s degree in divinity from Yale.
She told those gathered that “militarism, racism and poverty are the three things wrong with our country” and challenged those present to speak truth to power while pursuing Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of equality.
Senator Larkin talked about meeting Dr. King in Alabama in 1965.
The celebration started with a welcome from Newburgh mayor Nicholas Valentine, who noted the violence that plagues the city and asked people to find a non-violent way to solve problems. State senator Bill Larkin spoke about his meetings with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he was an Army colonel called in to help protect the participants in the historic Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march of 1965. Larkin said that he still thinks about Dr. King’s vision and he encouraged people in the audience to follow his path and turn away from drugs and violence.
Essay winners Arrestin Andres, Norma Brickner, Aquiala Walden, Alexis Conroy and Iman Brown. Not pictured: Andy Garcia.
A highlight of the evening came when committee chair Carl Hamilton handed out awards to the six winners of the 2011 Celebrating the Dream Essay Contest. Two sixth-graders, Arrestin Andres of Fostertown Magnet School and Norma Brickner of Balmville Elementary School, two NFA ninth-graders, Aquiala Walden of NFA and Andy Garcia, and two NFA twelfth-graders, Iman Brown and Alexis Conroy, received the honors for their essays.
God's Heavenly Angels perform "Encourage Yourself."
Dancers and musicians performed throughout the evening, including an interpretive dance performance by God’s Heavenly Angels from the Ebenezer Baptist Church and drummers and chorus from South Middle School. At the end of the program, everyone joined in singing “We Shall Overcome,” an anthem of the civil rights movement, and closed with a reading to inspire people for another year.
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