Jan 17, 2016 2 min read

The value of man was the theme Sunday at a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in Washington, where the keynote speaker said black Americans still face an achievement gap in wealth and education.

The Rev. Eugene C. Beard Jr. urged the clergy in Washington and elsewhere to work together to bring about more progress in the black community when he spoke at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington to mark King’s birthday on Jan. 15, 1929.

“There is a community of African-Americans here in Washington, Pa., who could change the world,” said Beard, pastor of Nazareth Baptist Church in Washington.

He said, while opportunities have improved, the achievement gap for black children begins in the second grade.

“There is something awfully wrong with that,” Beard said. “There are still those who don’t see anyone brown as equals.”

He said black Americans often undervalue themselves, too, and that’s a problem.

“We don’t have to be selling drugs and killing each other,” he said.

Beard said he wondered if King, who was assassinated in 1968, were alive today would he proclaim “we are free at last?”

“I don’t think so,” Beard said.

He urged those in attendance to register to vote and follow through in elections.