Inspiring Beloved Community through Spoken Word, Song and Dance

(Black PR Wire) Author, professor and reconciliation thought leader Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil will be the featured speaker at the “Becoming Brave” third annual tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Inspiring a Beloved Community in Song, Spoken Word and Dance virtual event scheduled for Monday, Jan. 18.

The event is sponsored by the Lift Every Voice Legacy (LEVL) in partnership with Communities of Color Coalition of Snohomish County (C3).

The event, debuting on the national holiday commemorating the birth of the iconic civil rights leader, is designed to inspire Dr. King’s vision of a Beloved Community – a local living environment free of hatred, injustice and poverty. 

The virtual event will launch Jan.18, on LEVL’s webpage but registration for the event is open here. The event, videotaped at the Edmonds Center for the Arts, is free to all. However, donations are requested to cover outstanding expenses and support future LEVL and C3 programs throughout the year.

McNeil is an associate professor of reconciliation studies at Seattle Pacific University, where she directs the Reconciliation Studies program. She is also the associate pastor of preaching and reconciliation at Quest Church in Seattle. Her recent book, Becoming Brave, is the inspiration for this year’s program.

Returning performers Seattle R&B and jazz singer Josephine Howell and Shoreline’s Northside Step Team will be additional highlights to the virtual program.  Storytelling by 50-year Edmonds resident Cirila Potter along with 18-year-old Mikayla Weary will also be an added feature. Al Price, a favorite Northwest bango and bluegrass performing artist, will debut a song he wrote especially for the event.  

“This is the third consecutive year we seek to encourage, engage and inspire the audience through avenues of song, spoken word and dance to be caring citizens by loving our neighbors as ourselves and promoting a community standard free of hatred, injustice and poverty,” said Edmonds resident Donnie Griffin, the founding leader of the Lift Every Voice Legacy. “Coming off a year of deep political divisions, a novel coronavirus pandemic and a reckoning on racial injustice, perhaps this is the right time to realign some of our values and focus on a basic call to action — respecting each other and caring for our neighbors however differently they may show up to us,” Griffin said. “This is the legacy Dr. King left for us and I am hopeful we all can live up to it in 2021.”