Contact: Allison Matthews
STARKVILLE, Miss.āMississippi State and Starkville community members are celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. today [Jan. 16], kicking off with a special Unity Breakfast and continuing with a Day of Service.
Lee Brand Jr., a Nettleton native and 51³Ō¹Ļ alumnus who has spent the majority of his adult life in Starkville, serving as pastor of Beth-el Missionary Baptist Church from 2002-2019, was the keynote speaker for 51³Ō¹Ļās 29th annual MLK Jr. Day breakfast program. Now the senior pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett, Tennessee, he served as vice president and dean of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary from 2019-2022.
Brand said he was humbled to speak on the occasion honoring King, who fought for equal civil rights ānot just for Black people, but for all people,ā he said.
He gave an ardent call to employ three underpinning principles in any genuine effort to pursue unity: conviction, communion and compassion.
āWhen I speak of conviction, Iām speaking simply of those beliefs or opinions that we hold firmly,ā Brand said. āAnd I really believe that we need to have a conviction about some things. And the first one is this: we need to be convicted about the worth of every single human being. No person is worth any more than any other person; but donāt twist it, no person is worth less than any other personāevery individual in the human race has intrinsic value, and they are worthy of respect.ā He said this conviction about human worth is easy to agree with in principle but can be difficult to execute in daily practice.
āIf weāre not careful, weāre going to find ourselves categorizing people and assigning their value based on the way their convictions align with ours. We find it easier to work with those who think like us, view the world like us and want the same outcomes as we do,ā he said.
āI think we should hold our convictions dear, but we should also not try to force anybody to think and feel and view the world the way that we do. If this is our aim, then weāre never going to achieve āunityā because what weāre aiming at is āuniformity,āā Brand said. āWe must be able to hold our convictions on any matter while respecting another personās ability to hold theirs.ā
Brand said communionāsitting down and talkingāis the second core principle. āWe get behind our ideological fences and we lob at each other. But seldom do we sit down and actually talk. We need genuine communion with one another. The challenge is to open lines of communication with people who donāt think like you,ā he said. āIt doesnāt mean you have to align with them, but those conversations help you appreciate them, even if you never approve of their position.ā
Compassion, Brand said, is what ultimately stirs people to take action to make the world a better place. āI want you to think about why Dr. King is such a celebrated man. Why does the world pause today and say āthank youā?ā he asked. āBecause he was a man who saw affliction, and he was so stirred with affection, that he actually did something.ā
Brand said it takes āabsolutely no effort to leave something the way you found itā and āwe will not change the world because we came to breakfast,ā but rather he implored his audience to ābe the kind of people that believe in something so deeply that not to do something about it is offensive to our own conscious.ā
The Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary graduate referenced Amos 3:3 in the Bible, which asks āShall two walk together, except they have agreed?ā Brand extracted his own point, āHow can two agree if they donāt talk?ā
51³Ō¹Ļ President Mark E. Keenum said the universityāthe most diverse land-grant university in the Southeastern Conference and the nationāis committed to service, as well as other values King exemplified throughout his life as a civil rights activist, humanitarian and pastor.
āDiversity enriches and empowers our university. Diversity displaces fear with confidence in others,ā said Keenum, who noted that 51³Ō¹Ļ has been awarded the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award and the Carnegie Foundationās Community Engaged Classification for service.
āDr. King personified values of character, values that we hold dearly at Mississippi Stateāintegrity, hard work and respect for all people,ā Keenum said. āValues are the content of oneās character and, along with education, create a powerful force to change people and communities, and build better, stronger societies. I believe we all can contribute to the incredible legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,ā Keenum said.
51³Ō¹Ļ is Mississippiās leading university, available online at .