(Featured photo: Marilyn Dent (center) lights candles during the Shabbat Tzedek service Jan. 12 at Congregation Children of Israel. Charmain Z. Brackett/Augusta Good News)
It could’ve been dangerous— potentially deadly — when the Rev. Rickey Dent and a friend sneaked out on March 23, 1968.
“The word was out – “’whatever church he’s speaking, we’re going to bomb the church.’ Everybody was shook up about it,” said Dent, pastor of Keys Grove Baptist Church, who spoke at the Congregation Children of Israel’s Shabbat Tzedek Jan. 12, about his experience seeing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in Augusta only two weeks before the civil rights leader was killed. “I had it on my heart. I had to get there.”
Dent said his parents didn’t want him to go to the church, fearing for his safety. He and a friend concocted a plan. Dent would go to the friend’s house across the street from his and enter through the front door and exit through the back without anyone seeing them.
The two then walked to Beulah Grove Baptist Church that night.
“The church was so crowded. There were people everywhere,” he said.
According to news reports at the time, King was exhausted and only spoke for about 10 minutes.
Dent remembers King speaking about freedom and saying to the crowd “Everybody that wants freedom, clap your hands; everybody that wants freedom, stomp your feet; everybody that wants freedom stand up and yell.”
After the service, he and his friend returned home entering the backdoor and going out the front, where he found his parents still sitting on the porch where they’d been the whole time.
Dent said he had two thoughts about that night.
“What if the church was bombed and I was in there? (and) What if I didn’t go to see the dreamer?” he said.
And more than 55 years later, Dent carries on the dream and encouraged those gathered to carry the dream as well.
The Shabbat service is held weekly, but this one brought together different races and different faiths sharing a common message of hope.
For more than three decades, Reform Jewish congregations have devoted the Shabbat preceding Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day to celebrate the values and life of Dr. King.
The Rev. Dr. Charles Goodman Jr., pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church, also spoke. He posed the question “Who Is my neighbor?” and drew from the text of Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, examining the actions of the man who cared for a beaten and wounded man he didn’t know.
“Jesus says that is a neighbor – someone who sees you and bandages you and picks you up and carries you to the end, and even at the end says ‘put their needs on me.’ What world would we have if we saw each other as each other’s responsibility? What kind of place would we live if we made the decision that your lack is my lack and your shortage is my shortage and your health is my health; your joy is my joy and your peace is my peace. What would happen if we made the decision to see, to heal, to lift up and take accountability for. That to me is justice,” he said.
Rabbi Remy Liverman said the theme of the weekly service was the Shabbat of righteousness and justice
The prayers and readings Friday spoke of the synagogue being a place of refuge where all were welcome. Prayers reflected on not asking God to do something, but giving congregants the strength to take their own actions.
“As I’ve said before to our congregation, we stand for the oppressed because we know oppression. We stand for justice because we know injustice; we stand for unity because we know what it is to be divided; above all, we stand for each other and with each other and by each other, and tonight, we honor the legacy of social justice and the memory of Dr. King together,” she said.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for 35 years. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
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