Correspondent photo / Sean Barron Bishop Timothy Clarke, senior pastor of Columbus-based First Church of God, delivers the keynote address at an MLK Day commemoration celebration in Youngstown on Sunday night.

YOUNGSTOWN — When Lyllie Snider thinks of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., her mind is filled with images of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, as well as presentations he delivered that were lesser known than his iconic “I Have a Dream,” speech but, many would argue, just as powerful.

“I think of being in the place where he was last,” Snider, 15, a Chaney High School sophomore, said, referring to the Lorraine Motel, where he was shot to death April 4, 1968.

Snider, however, did more than merely recall some of King’s clarion calls to encourage people to adopt the philosophy of nonviolence, treat everyone with dignity and stand up to injustices.

The 10th-grader read excerpts of one of his speeches as part of Sunday’s commemorative celebration and community worship service at Union Baptist Church, 528 Lincoln Ave., near downtown.

Hosting the two-hour praise, worship and musical celebration of the late civil rights leader’s life and legacy was the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Committee.

Specifically, Snider read aloud portions of King’s “Loving Your Enemies” speech, which he delivered Nov. 17, 1957, at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where he was pastor.

The speech reads in part: “An individual in seeking to love his enemy must seek to discover the element of good in his enemy, and every time you think of hating that person, realize there is some good there and look at those good points, which will overbalance the bad points.

“And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see down deep within him, what religion calls ‘the image of God,’ you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see the image of God.”

King went on to say that Jesus Christ talks about the redemptive power of love, and how hate “destroys the hater as well as the hated.”

Snider added that she wants more people her age to realize peaceful means are always available to solve conflicts and disputes instead of guns and violence.

“This is the thing MLK didn’t want us to do,” she observed.

Another speech reader was Fyve McBride, who attends Christ Centered Church in Youngstown. He read parts of “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence,” a speech King gave April 4, 1967, to about 3,000 people at Riverside Church in New York City one year to the day before his assassination.

In it, King denounces the war that was steadily growing more unpopular at home, and his theme of “a revolution of values” surged through it. He also condemned the war that killed an estimated 58,000 American troops as being unjust, anti-democratic and impractical.

King also said in part, “If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read, ‘Vietnam.’ It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over.”

The program’s keynote speaker was Bishop Timothy J. Clarke, senior pastor of Columbus-based First Church of God.

In his fiery presentation, which he called “What Makes a Dreamer Dangerous,” Clarke compared King to other visionaries who defied the status quo and paid a high price. They included Galileo, who was labeled “vehemently suspect of heresy” and was jailed for asserting that the sun, not the Earth, lies at the center of the universe, and that the Earth revolves around the sun. He also mentioned Socrates, who was forced to drink hemlock after having been found guilty of impiety and corrupting youth for inspiring disrespect for authority, even though that was not his intention.

For his part, King “was stabbed in ’58, jailed throughout his career, spat upon and ultimately made a martyr because he had a dream,” Clarke said.

In September 1958, a mentally ill black woman stabbed King in the chest with a letter opener as he was looking down signing copies of his book “Stride Toward Freedom” in a Harlem, New York, department store.

Clarke also read from Genesis 37:18, which talks in essence about slaying the dreamer, tossing him into a pit, saying that a beast devoured him and “see what becomes of his dream.”

“The world has never quite known what to do with dreamers,” said Clarke, who began pastoring at First Church of God in February 1982.

He also called misogyny, sexism and racism “evils” that can seek to destroy one’s dream, and that those who dare dream often are dismissed as “misfits and outcasts” because they can bring about positive change via challenging power structures and disrupting the status quo.

Others who spoke noted that King realized no people can stay oppressed forever, and that freedom eventually will come to them. Also read were quotes from Isaiah 40:4-5, which talks about how every valley shall be exalted, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight – words King used toward the end of the “Dream” speech he gave Aug. 28, 1963, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Even though King’s assassination at age 39 took place nearly 56 years ago, it’s up to all people to do their part to carry out his vision of a more peaceful, just and equitable society, the Rev. Kenneth L. Simon, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church, said.

“It’s going to take all of us to keep the dream alive,” he added.