St Peter Claver Catholic School
Outside the day dawned cold and brisk but inside the Mother Katharine Drexel Center at St. Peter Claver, the Heart of Georgia beat warm and true as Maconites of every race and creed gathered for the 29th Annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast Celebration on January 21, 2019.
Attendees dined on a hot breakfast (with grits, of course) rustled up by the kitchen staff from True Faith Church of God and served by St. Peter Claver Catholic School Beta Club.
After Father William McIntyre, OFM welcomed everyone, Charles E. Richardson, Artist in Residence at Middle Georgia State University, and Cathy Cox, Dean of Mercer University Law School and former Georgia Secretary of State, both gave inspiring speeches on the right to vote. They made it clear that Dr. King’s exhortation of “Give us the ballot” from 1957 is a clarion call that still rings true today and with the same sense of urgency. The speakers drove home the raw power of the vote, the need to cherish it, and how we must work to protect it, even today.
St. Peter Claver Catholic Church was established in Pleasant Hill in 1903 to minister to the Black Catholics of Macon. Pleasant Hill was once a thriving African-American neighborhood but since the 1960s, with the exodus of the resident middle class and decades of dis-investment, it fell into a sharp decline. Now the neighborhood is one of concentrated unemployment, poverty and blight but still with a strong sense of neighborhood.
As Mr. Rogers once said, “Always look for the helpers.” And indeed, there are many helpers in Pleasant Hill. After the breakfast, in the spirit of true grassroots organization and the power of community churches harnessed so well by Dr. King, Fr. Bill and other community churches led neighborhood residents, parishioners students and community leaders from across Macon on the first annual Prayer Walk through Pleasant Hill. The Prayer Walk celebrated peace, unity, connection, hope and all the good in the neighborhood: most importantly, its people and its history. The walkers prayed for guidance as they set about their work to improve Pleasant Hill. On the chilly walk, hearts were warmed, connections made, spirits nourished, and the People readied for the work to be done.
