Speaker talks of inequality at MLK breakfast

By Denise Dick | January 24, 2014 at 12:00a.m.

Speaker discusses true equality at MLK day event at YSU

YOUNGSTOWN

All forms of inequality threaten the equality we think we have, the Rev. Christopher McKee Jr., pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church, told attendees Thursday at the 12th annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Diversity Breakfast at Youngstown State University.

“If millions of children in the world go hungry, not because of a lack of food but because of global hoarding of resources, then we are not equal,” the Rev. Mr. McKee said.

If women are regarded as property in parts of the world, earn less than their male counterparts and must break through the glass ceiling of various forms, then we’re still not equal, he said.

If people cannot access health care while the country spends millions in other countries, we’re still not equal.

Mr. McKee is a native of Youngstown who grew up in Antioch Baptist Church. He is a graduate of Girard City Schools and Youngstown State University where he was a Leslie H. Cochran University Scholar, graduating summa cum laude in 2006.

In 2009, he completed his master of divinity degree at Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Conn., and he was installed as Tabernacle Baptist’s pastor last June.

In introducing Mr. McKee, Eugenia Atkinson told the crowd that he comes to the role of pastor with “a great deal of energy and excitement and puts Tabernacle in a position where it can continue to move forward and be a force in the community.”

Thursday’s breakfast also included a tribute to the late Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa who died last month, by Samuel Arthur and the YSU African Student Union.

Mandela, a lawyer and activist, was imprisoned for more than 27 years, accused of trying overthrow the state, for his efforts to abolish apartheid.