Pottstown Honors Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Digital First Media photo by Gene Walsh

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day Community choir performs Sunday at The Hill School.

Nearly 200 people participated in Pottstown's 11th Annual Martin Luther King Celebration at The Hill School's Center for the Arts Sunday.

As always, it was marked by wonderful music, and a reading of King's most famous speech from the August, 1963 March on Washington.



And with a match from Hill School Chaplain John Houghton's "discretionary fund," about $2,500 was raised from the offering to help The Salvation Army in Pottstown help the borough's homeless population.

Various pastors, including Muslim clergy from The Hill, read Bible passages and from the Koran and Gwen Hill took on the task of reading the "I have A Dream" speech.

She crushed it by the way,

I'm afraid I recorded it in one-minute segments so I could more easily fit it into the one-minute fram of Tout videos, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Stressing Pottstown's need for unity, The Rev. Vernon Ross, pastor of Bethel Community Church of Pottstown and one of the event's perennial organizers, said he hopes for a day when a representative from all 60-plus churches in the greater Pottstown area "are up here on this stage with us."

A fine wish.

Here is some more music from the celebration:



And here are some Tweets and video not only of my own, but of Mercury Reporter Eric Devlin who covered the event for the paper and from Gene Walsh, the Digital First Media photographer who shot photos for us, and posted some video as well: