Pastor Darren Leach brought a simple message to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast at Lion Hills Center Monday morning: Dare to dream, even when society tries to convince you your dreams are impossible.
Leach, pastor at Genesis Church and executive director of the Memphis Town Community Action Group, likened the struggle to seize the American dream to a video he was shown in which a pike — a type of carnivorous fish — was trained to ignore a school of minnows in its tank.
“A school of minnows was put in a glass jar that the pike could not see,” Leach said. “The pike could see the minnows, but he couldn’t get to them. Finally the pike gave up and stopped trying.”
The glass jar was eventually removed, and the pike, convinced the minnows right in front of him were beyond his reach, starved to death, Leach said.
“We can learn from the pike that there are times where the system is designed so you can see the American dream, but you can’t get to it,” Leach said. “For many years, we have been able to see the dream, but there’s something in the way that stops us from getting to it.”
The other thing Leach said he learned from the story of the pike was that eventually the glass jar was removed.
“The pike is also telling us that no matter what we’ve been through, we have to recognize when things change,” Leach said. “I’m not saying the jar is gone, but I am saying it’s been tilted enough that we can eat. Forget about the part where you couldn’t get to it, and simply try again.”
To receive the American dream people need vision, Leach said.
“Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint,” Leach said. “We want to understand why our children are casting off restraint, it is because we have not given them vision.”
Part of that vision is the ability to imagine a better life, Leach said.
“Let’s imagine a city that’s environmentally friendly,” Leach said. “… Let’s imagine a city where we can take the old Kerr-McGee site, which has been a mountain of despair, and pull out of it a stone of hope.”
The former Kerr-McGee plant site straddles both sides of 14th Avenue North. It was declared an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in 2015 due to creosote contamination in the ground. For much of the 20th century the plant pressure-treated wood products with preservatives, including creosote.
Leach, via the CAG, is involved in efforts to redevelop the plant site.
“Imagine living in a city with an A-rated school system,” Leach said. “Imagine if we pull together all the talent and resources we have, we can have our kids not just going to school but going to after school programs where they learn to fly drones and build planes. All you have to do is imagine with me.”
Leach encouraged citizens of Columbus to dream big and not be discouraged.
“Never lose your imagination,” Leach said. “Never get to the point where the only thing in your mind is the times that you failed. You’ve got to be able to imagine again. … The door doesn’t have to be open, just crack it and we’ll all run in.”
The event at Lion Hills was the first of several celebrating King’s legacy. At 10 a.m. the Dream GIRLS (Girls in Real Life Situations) led a march from the Columbus Police Department to City Hall, which was followed by a reading of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Events in Starkville were postponed Monday due to the threat of winter weather. That included an NAACP-led march downtown and honoring two new civil rights champions at Unity Park. Organizers for both events said they would be held in February.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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