Hank Dewald | For rrspin.com

One of the oldest and best known Lake Gaston area churches welcomed Second District U.S. Congressman G.K. Butterfield as their keynote speaker for the 2011 celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Drummers help celebrate King Day.

Known to many Lake Gaston residents as the “Neon Church” because of the large flashing LED sign out front that reminds folks just how hot or cold it is, Oak Grove Church is one of the oldest churches in the area, having sprung from the ground in Littleton in 1865.

Butterfield joined a standing-room only crowd, who celebrated the holiday honoring the United States Armed Forces, past, present and fallen.

The front two rows of the center aisle were reserved for veterans who stood and identified themselves and in what branch of the service they had served.

That was the quiet beginning of the celebration, punctuated only by long periods of applause for the veterans, which included some for Butterfield himself, who is also a veteran. Two dance groups followed, led by the renowned Collage Dance Company of Durham.

The Collage Dance Company is a group of young dancers and musicians working together to explore African and African American dance, music, and traditions, and they certainly woke up the crowd at Oak Grove Church Monday afternoon.

Led by eight African drums that filled the church like thunder, the dancers became a flurry of choreographed motion.

The Praise Dancers, a well-known local group of youngsters, performed next and captivated the audience in a totally different way, performing to poetry instead of drums, but the effect was well received by the audience.

When Congressman Butterfield was introduced to the crowd, the polite applause seemed to indicate most expected just another politician speech. Butterfield had other ideas though and within the first few minutes of his 30-plus minute speech, he had most of the audience listening from the edge of their seats.

He began by reaffirming he is indeed from Wilson, but then explained how his roots also run deep in Halifax County.

Often sounding more like a Republican than the Democratic congressman he is, Butterfield changed gears and began describing what a mess the country is in right now. “I want to talk about Martin Luther King, but I want to give you a summary of where we are as a country right now first.”

“This is not a good time,” he said, shaking his hands in illustration. “We’re trying to run a three-trillion dollar government on two-trillion dollars ... That’s a problem. It would be a problem at your church; it would be a problem at the VFW; it would be a problem in your business. Every time you’re borrowing 40 cents on every dollar that you spend, that’s a problem. And that’s the problem we’re facing in Washington.”

“Democrats and Republicans have different views on how we balance the budget. There are two ways to balance the budget,” Butterfield said. “One is to get more money coming in and that means raising the taxes, and we’re not going to do that.”

The congressman pointed out local politicians in the crowd, including Halifax County Commissioners James Pierce, Vernon Bryant and Carolyn Johnson, and said, “They haven’t been able to raise taxes and neither will the folks in Washington. The only thing left is we’ve got to cut spending. The question is where do you cut spending? I pray we do not cut the community colleges and other programs that mean so much to our community.”

With that out of the way, Butterfield took everyone back to the days of slavery, pointing out that this part of Halifax County was the epicenter of activity as the slaves were finally freed. Indeed, Oak Grove Church itself was chartered at the end of the Civil War.

Butterfield took the audience on a vibrant history story as African-Americans made great strides during a period known as Reconstruction after the end of the war. “There were fifteen thousand freed slaves in Halifax County alone,” he stressed.

Once those men could vote (Women were still not allowed to vote during those times), African-American men began to hold political power in this country for the first time.

His public speaking skills kept every member of the audience mesmerized as he described the actual history, but in a way that showed the affects here in the Roanoke Valley and on the critical political events of those times. Most of the children in the church were on the edge of their seats, hearing a story most knew well, but told in a completely new way.

The days of black political power didn’t last long he explained, as the former white power brokers came up with new laws to exclude blacks from voting, effectively disenfranchising them. By the time the story reached the actual times of Martin Luther King Jr., Butterfield marveled at the fact that King’s actual time in a leadership role was brief, but very powerful. “Just a total period of just 13 years,” he said.

Butterfield said the united leadership King provided took the message to Washington, and, more importantly, to an up-and-coming politician named John Kennedy, who was running for President in 1959. “We need a civil rights act that can make sure that black people and white people can go to the same places,” he described. “You’ve been a wonderful Senator and we want you to be President, but you’ve got to promise us that you’re going to propose (and pass) a civil rights act.”

Kennedy did promise, but by 1963, had failed to deliver on that promise so King went to him again with a stronger appeal. “No, now is not the time,” Butterfield quoted Kennedy as telling King. “That is why we had a march on Washington,” he said, to convince Kennedy it was indeed the time to deliver on his promise. Butterfield was there that day in Washington, when 250,000 people marched on Washington, “On a hot, hot day,” he said.

Butterfield’s fascinating history lesson took the audience through Kennedy’s assassination that followed on the heels of his proposal of the Civil Rights Act and his Vice-president Lyndon Johnson’s admirably pushing through the passage of the legislation.

“But what you must understand, is the Civil Rights law had nothing to do with voting,” Butterfield stressed. “It was a public accommodations law. So you know what happened then? Dr. King was a world-wide celebrity; He was given the Nobel Peace Prize and donated that money to charity. President Johnson invited him to the White House and said ‘I hope we have satisfied you and the Black community.’ As only Dr. King could do, he looked squarely into the eyes of Johnson and said, ‘Now we need a voting rights act.”

Butterfield’s story continued with an exasperated Johnson inviting King into his oval office privately where he told King, “Dr. King, I know what you’re saying. I’m from Texas; I’m from the South. I get it, but I can’t do that. I just lost my friend going through the Civil Rights Bill! Now, a year later, I cannot do a Voting Rights Bill. I cannot do it, be patient with me.”

“Dr. King said you really don’t understand. The nation that practices freedom and democracy and is supposed to be the perfect nation to the world is depriving its citizens the right to vote. Johnson said, ‘Now Dr. King, Blacks can vote in the South,’ but King said, ‘No, that’s not true, they can’t because there’s a literacy test that was put on the books way back in 1900.’ King said ‘We’ve got to do it Mr. President and we’ve got to do it now.’”

Butterfield said Johnson told King, “I’m not going to do it because it will deprive me of a second term in office,” so King went back to Atlanta and started a brand new movement called the Voting Rights Act Movement. There were two very important but separate movements Butterfield stressed.

The latter movement was met with violence in Selma, Alabama, and the world watched as 500 marchers were violently stopped from crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. “There was tremendous violence and we called it, ‘Bloody Sunday,’ That group of 500 turned into 5,000 in a matter of days, and the world was watching.”

In the end, Butterfield told of Johnson’s warning to King that the South would turn from predominantly Democratic voters to Republicans, which it has indeed done.

As the history lesson ended, Butterfield finished by saying, “Never, did I ever believe, that of four judges here in Halifax County, three are African-American.”

He paused for effect and thunderous applause, and then followed with, “And all three are females.”