Rev. Rethis Murry receives an award from COL Alex Dornstauder

COL Alex Dornstauder presented a plaque and a commander’s coin to the day’s guest speaker, Rev. Rethis Murry, after Murry had gotten the crowd of 100 or so team members chanting “Amen!” to his oratorical flourishes.  Adding to the halleluiah atmosphere was Murry’s mother, Vermettya Royster, an original member of the famous Clara Ward Singers.  Her rich contralto dopplered up and down the scale during two gospel songs, setting toes tapping and hands clapping.

“A Day On—Not a Day Off!” was the theme picked by the District’s black employment manager, Regina Parker, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Office chief, Frances Jones.  They and committee members Gabe Brooks, Delores Henderson, Bridgette Hollier, Barbara Kellough, Katie Parks, Lashawn Richardson, Vicki Stephens-Allen, COL David Turk, Matthews Turner and Ruby White also expanded the theme with the admonition:  “Remember!  Celebrate!  Act!”

COL Dornstauder welcomed the crowd by recalling King as “someone who was elemental in shaping this country and who we are as Americans.  So this theme is spot on!”

Black History Committee

Murry then cited the Book of Proverbs:  “For as a man or woman thinketh in their heart, so they are.”  He asked, “As we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, my question for you is:  what’s on your mind?”

Observing that “Dr. King had a dream—but he was not a dreamer,” Murry challenged the audience to make their own dreams a reality.  “How can we rest when we are losing our kids to gangs?  How can we rest when we send more young black men to prison than to college?  We can’t take a day off as long as we have babies making babies!” he thundered.

He also called the federal employees “leaders,” adding, “When I look at the colonel and the other military people in this room, I understand what true sacrifice is all about.”  He also warned everyone that “you cannot afford to take a day off—every day you need to do something that Dr. King did.”

Murry, who spent 18 years under the tutelage of Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray at First A.M.E. Church in Los Angeles, issued one final exhortation:  “Don’t talk about it.  Be about it!”

His mother then returned for an encore, and soon the whole room was swaying and singing to “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

The conference room then morphed into a soul food diner, with baked chicken, macaroni and cheese, turnip greens, yams, cornbread, peach cobbler and strawberry soda.  Rev. Murry blessed the food.