Garnell Whitfield, Commissioner of the Buffalo Fire Department, addressed the SGM, Inc. staff, clients, and credential holders from Elim Fellowship at the annual Martin Luther King Day luncheon, hosted by SGM, Inc. and Elim Fellowship.
The Good of Buffalo
To Rev. Terry King, Executive Director of Saving Grace Ministries, Inc., to all of the clergy here today, to the guests, the staff and to the persons that are being served by this wonderful organization, I greet you in the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.
It is truly an honor to be here with you today as we celebrate the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I must say that I was and am a bit surprised and taken aback by the invitation to speak here today in front of an audience such as this. It has always been my place to be on the other side…. out there with you in the pews when I am in the company of the clergy… I mean, these people do this for a living so they have to be a tough audience! So pray for me.
Just to share a little bit about me, I have been a member of the BFD for the past 28 years… 11 ½ of which, from 1985 – 1996, I spent right here working in this firehouse… In 1998 I was promoted to CFA, in 2004 I was appointed as Deputy Commissioner of Administration and Personnel, and in 2006 I was appointed to DC of Emergency Medical Services. In January of 2010, Mayor Brown appointed me as Commissioner of Fire.
I have been married to my beautiful wife Cassietta for the past 27 years and we have 4 children and 6 grandchildren. I have lived in Buffalo just about all of my life and have seen and benefited directly from the struggles and work of many, especially the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.
Had it not been for those who went before us, those who fought against the injustices of their day, this day would not be possible. When we were but small children and my father worked at LL Bergers in downtown Buffalo making $50 a week for a family of 6, he aspired to be a police officer. I remember him trying to avail himself of the process and get information on how to apply. But back then, he wasn’t even allowed to get an application, let alone apply for the position. Yes , I am fully aware that I stand before you today only because MLK Jr. and the people of that day, including my father and mother, did not accept the injustices of their day… did not use them as an excuse for our situation… and most importantly… did not think it a waste of their time to work and plan for a better day.
And what I find to be significant is that they understood that the work they were doing and the sacrifices that they were making were not going to fulfill their immediate needs for justice and equality, opportunity and respect…. But they did it anyway and found it worthwhile to lay down the foundation so that future generations – yours and mine - might have the freedoms that they were being denied. Has anyone ever planted a seed in the ground in the hope of growing something? After you decide what it is you want to grow and get your seed, you have to find some fertile ground to plant it in. And after it is planted, you have to nurture it by continuing to water it and make sure that it is protected from the dangers of it’s environment, keeping unwanted things from growing up around it and covering it or surrounding it to keep others out.
Now all of this is done in the hope and belief that one day your labor will be rewarded and that seed will manifest itself as that which you were trying to grow… it will bear fruit. This is what Martin Luther King and his generation did for us. We are reaping, harvesting the fruit of their labor for they watered and nurtured those yearnings for freedom that were always bottled up within them and they planted the seeds of justice and equality in the conscious of America and the hearts and minds of future generations… What are we planting today? Or are we just reaping and living off of the sacrifices of our forefathers?
Martin Luther King, in his famous “I‘ve Been to the Mountain Top” speech, showed that he understood this principle. He understood that he might not live to see and enjoy the fruit of his labor, but he knew that what was important was that someone had to plant the seed and nurture it and that one day it would bear fruit. Thanks be to God that he had the vision, the courage, and a faith in God that allowed him to plant those seeds. That he understood the redemptive power of love and that in spite of his challenges, he was committed to do the work of God. Like Moses before him, he would lead his people out of bondage but not be allowed to go into the promised land. He understood what his role was and we can learn a valuable lesson from that.
In times like these, what is our role? In the City of Buffalo, the city of Good Neighbors, we have some very troubling things going on. Buffalo is one of the most racially segregated cities in America, it has one of the highest dropout rates of high school students and one of the lowest rated school systems. It is one of the poorest cities in America and has some of the highest unemployment among its minority population. It has a high rate of illiteracy, one of the highest rate of AIDS among young people in the country, specifically in the 14215 zip code… Teenage pregnancy, and some of the highest rates of heart disease, MS, stroke, cancer and other maladies that can be found anywhere in the country.
Can our young men who are being incarcerated, disenfranchised and written off on a daily basis see the good? And can the women who are left to raise children that will never know their fathers see the good in Buffalo?
What is our role… do we have a dream? And if so, are we willing to work for it, to trust God and to go in and possess the land, or are we like the Isrealites who were afraid of the giants of their day? All generations have giants to deal with, but not all have the courage to deal with them. Martin Luther King inspires us because he had the courage and faith to deal with the giants of racism and hate that permeated his day. What will we do with our giants?
In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he wrote “…the question is not whether we will be extremists, but rather what kind of extremists we will be…” This is a direct challenge to us today. Will we accept the extremes of the injustices and inequalities that seem to permeate every aspect of our lives today, or will we, as Dr. King did, develop the kind of relationship with God that allows us to love our enemies, that empowers us to find and to use that voice inside of us to cry out for change?
You know, sometimes we ask God for things not fully understanding what we’re asking for, and when He manifests them in your life you’ll wish that maybe He hadn’t heard you, at least that time! In my current position, and I am sure in many of yours, it is sometimes a struggle to what God’s will is for you. We know that He has blessed us and we know that we ought to be using the things He’s given to us to do His will but we can’t always see the connection between that and the trouble of the day. Sometimes all we can see is the trouble and sometimes it looks like there is no end. But we have to remember the lessons of Dr. King, that he had gotten to the point that he didn’t care what was up ahead, he just wanted to do God’s will… to have the hope and faith that we need to do the work of today, we must remember where God has already brought us from.
God has been good to us and the same God that brought us through the past and gives us today holds our tomorrow. Therefore I submit to you that our tomorrow is bright. God is calling for His people to find their voice and to stand boldly before the giants in their lives. The Bible says that if we hold our peace, the stones will cry out.
Dr. King said “This generation will have to repent, not only for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but also for the appalling silence of the good people…” Are we appalled by the evil of this day, or is God appalled by our silence? What are we doing to fulfill God’s will in our lives?
On this day, Dr. King is calling us to renew our since of justice, to find our voices and to loudly proclaim that “we hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator, not man, with certain inalienable rights.” That we shouldn’t judge men by the color of their skin but by the content of their character… and not only should we be able to overlook the color of their skin… but we ought to be able to forgive them of their past transgressions just as God has forgiven us. You see, none of us are perfect and all of us have fallen short of the glory of God.
The brothers and sisters that are clients of this wonderful ministry present an opportunity for us to show compassion and to use those things that God has blessed us with to help them find their voice for we are inexorably tied together and Jesus said that as you have done unto the least of these, you have done also unto me. Your lives are as fertile ground and the seeds have already been planted. We as a community must stop sitting back in judgment of others and start nurturing those seeds that all of us have inside of us just waiting to manifest themselves.
I have talked about a number of negative facts about Buffalo and surely we have many giants to contend with. But I don’t want to portray a negative and hopeless Buffalo - quite the contrary. Our generation has been given an unprecedented opportunity to make a difference. It is our season if we but recognize it. Our children, friends, family, neighborhoods and God are waiting anxiously for us to find the voice that is in all of us. The one that calls us to action. The one allows us to put down our differences, for they are our giants, and pick up our cross… and it is our cross.
On this day, let us commit to keeping the dream alive every day. Let us daily abhore these things we know to be unjust, and let us not do so in silence, for to quote Dr. King, “nothing is more dangerous than sincere ignorance or conscious stupidity”.
The mere existence of this facility is evidence that something is very wrong in our society and we thank God that you have recognized that we can no longer afford to just sit in judgment of others but that we must reach out and in doing so raise up our brothers and sisters as we have been raised up.
To my brothers who are with us and a part of this program, I want to encourage you. There is much that you can do to help us deal with our giants. You are perfectly positioned to be a part of our solution.
In his beyond Vietnam Speech, given exactly one year to the day before his assassination, Dr. King recognized the injustice of poor, disenfranchised African Americans being sent to Vietnam to fight and die along side white men whom they wouldn’t be allowed eat with or live next to in America. Your circumstances are not all that different. We still continue to send our young men, who are undereducated and without fathers, jobs or hope, to prison and war in disproportionate numbers. Further alienating them and ostracizing them to the point that the only place they and we can feel comfortable is for them to stay in prison.
We need you. We need you to be fathers to your children. We need you to tell some of these young brothers how it is on the other side. Somebody needs to see how God has picked you up and turned you around… you have much to give also.
The Good in Buffalo… it is in all of us… let us find our voice.
