Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Service Honors the Dreamer “ Let Freedom Ring from Stone Mountain”
By Jeanette Pinkston Jackson
Stone Mountain, Georgia–January 20, 2020–Saint Paul (Stone Mountain) African Methodist Episcopal Church celebrated the King Holiday in a major way! From an ecumenical worship service–to naming a street honoring two African-American women–to ringing the freedom bell, citizens from Stone Mountain, Georgia and surrounding communities honored the life of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Religious, governmental and civic groups greeted over 200 people gathered for worship, the street unveiling and bell ringing ceremonies. Stone Mountain Mayor Pat Wheeler; Rep. Billy Mitchell (D); Senator Steve Henson (R); Rabbi Jess Charyn of Temple Beth David; and the Reverend Thomas L. Bess, Atlanta East District presiding elder and president of the Judicial Council of the AME Church greeted the gathering. Bernard Clay, Ph.D., and the Shermantown Combined Choirs of Bethsaida Baptist Church, Ebenezer Baptist Church and Saint Paul AMEC sung, “If I can Help Somebody.” Beverly Jones was the worship leader.
The commemorative service featured DeKalb County (Georgia) CEO Michael Thurman as keynote speaker. He was introduced by Presiding Officer and DeKalb County Commissioner, Steve Bradshaw. Saint Paul and Concerned Citizens of Stone Mountain, chaired by Saint Paul’s Pastor Orea Parker, hosted the event.
“I am the son of a sharecropper. My father was a sharecropper, my grandfather was a sharecropper. That makes me a sharecropper. I am a sharecropper with a JD degree. That’s makes me a bad man,” said Thurman.
Thurman described how as a child he rode on the back of his father’s pick-up truck, sitting on watermelons, as his father sold vegetables on his vegetable route. Though he was ashamed at the time, he now realizes that that vegetable route comprised the same community he would one day represent under the gold dome at the Georgia State Capitol.
The same people who bought his father’s vegetables allowed him to place signs in their front yards as he campaigned for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives, because they remembered Thurman’s father to be a “good man.”
Thurman didn’t want it at the time, but that vegetable route would play a significant role in getting him elected. The same people who bought Sidney Thurman’s vegetables– prayed for Thurman and voted for him to represent them in the hallowed halls of state government.
One family to whom his father had extended credit, helping them put food on the table to feed their children, covered Thurman in prayer on the campaign trail.
“I didn’t want that vegetable route. I was trying to get out of there, but that same route got me elected,” said Thurman. “You’re here today, because Big Mama prayed for you. You’re here today, because somebody prayed for you.”
During the service, the Rev. Orea Parker and Mike Cooper of Concerned Citizens of Stone Mountain presented special recognitions to Michael Thurman and Vanessa Cummings. Mayor Wheeler read a resolution renaming Venable Street “Eva Mamie Lane,” honoring Evangelist Eva Greene and Mamie Ella Lane. Venable Street was originally named for the Venable family whose son James Venable was imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Vanessa Cummings led the effort to rename Venable Street “Eva Mamie Lane” to honor the trailblazing mother-daughter duo, who lived in the historic Shermantown Community.
Following the service congregants marched three blocks from Saint Paul to the corner of Third Street and newly named Eva-Maime Lane for the unveiling, singing “We Shall Overcome.”
Cummings and Lydia Shumake, descendant of Mother Eva Greene, unveiled the street sign, while immensely proud onlookers– from the historic neighborhood where General Tecumseh Sherman is said to have camped during the burning of Atlanta–cheered.
When Sherman’s troops continued the march from the mountain to the sea, 19,000 former slaves traveled with him by foot. The area was called “Shermantown,” after the emancipator, and is situated at the foot of Stone Mountain Park, a granite mountain, out-cropping, which has three Confederate generals carved into its side. Stone Mountain, now predominately African- American, was the site of numerous Klan rallies and cross burnings.
The gathering then marched to the site of the Freedom Bell on Main Street, where the Reverend Doctor Samuel Mosteller, president of the Georgia SCLC gave the history of ringing the freedom bell that emerged with Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which Shermantown residents called “Jubilee Day.” Micah Richards, city communications specialist, read King’s “I Have a Dream Speech.” The crowd joined in as he read “Let freedom ring…” and erupted with joy as he read “Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain in Georgia!” Adults and children took turns ringing the “freedom bell.” Stone Mountain City Manager, ChaQuaise Miller-Thornton closed the gathering with prayer.
