Pastor Pushes Attendees to Realize Martin Luther King’s Dream in Powerful Remembrance Service

“What would [Martin Luther King, Jr.] say about what’s going on in the world today?” asked Dr. Lindsay E. Curtis, a pastor at Norwalk’s Grace Baptist Church, as he addressed a crowd gathered in New Canaan on Monday morning to remember the late Reverend and civil rights leader. One of two first-hand witnesses of King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington to speak at the community’s annual service, held at the United Methodist Church, Curtis passionately reminded attendees that King’s presence in history is inherently political, and that, should the divide ever-present in today’s landscape ever be bridged, his legacy must be celebrated and upheld not only on his birthday, but year-round. At the center of Curtis’s speech, delivered during a remembrance service sponsored by the Interfaith Council of New Canaan, was a passage from King’s 1963 open letter, written from Birmingham Jail after his arrest. The quote reads as follows; “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere … He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.