By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com
The basement of the Crestline Public Library may not seem like the most glamorous of settings for the reenactment of a famous moment in time. It is a smallish, fairly plain, room with the typical supply of conference chairs and folding tables you would expect. It was designed to be used as often as possible for as diverse a range of uses as possible. This requirement of multi-functionality necessarily lends itself to a certain plainness. Those looking around the room and considering its unsuitability for the moment at hand would, of course, be missing the point entirely.
A moment’s power is in its ability to resonate deeply, powerfully, and with the ability to retain that power when it is revisited. In that basement in Crestline, Crawford County citizens gathered to commemorate and celebrate just such a moment, the 50th Anniversary of the “I Have a Dream Speech” delivered before the Lincoln monument in Washington DC. That the speech could travel 500 miles, across fifty years, and play itself out again in a much humbler setting than the Lincoln Memorial is proof positive of its place in American, and world, history.
David Chatman was the man taking center stage in our performance, affecting the character of Dr. King and delivering his famous speech. This is something of a pastime for David, one which began when he was a sixth grader. It was at this tender age that he first delivered the speech, before his church, and during this maiden voyage he was witnessed by Carolyn Helbert.
Helbert spent 35 years as a high school social studies teacher in Crestline and she was instantly won over by Chatman’s performance. When Chatman was her student, he delivered the speech again in one of her classes. Helbert was worried how it would go over, if the students would pay attention for the entire 17 minutes. In the end, her fears were unfounded.
“You could hear a pin drop,” Helbert beamed as she recollected that day.
It has been a spiritual journey for David to deliver this speech down through the years, and it was a spiritual journey for some of those in attendance at Wednesday night’s rendition. John Dunne Sr., of Mansfield, remarked that he remembered watching the original on television in “the north end of Mansfield.” Dunne was unable to make it to Washington for the 50th Anniversary, so came to Crestline instead.
“Each time I hear it, I get goose bumps. I don’t care how many times you hear it, “ Dunne said.
It is this ability to inspire time and again that elevates something, whether it is a speech, book, song, etc, to a true level of specialness. Chatman was in agreement with Dunne about this speech’s ability to grow in stature the more it is reviewed. He compared it to a great piece of literature, which in a sense it is, that imparts a new gift on each return to it.
After he concluded Dr. King’s words, Chatman shared a few of his own. He looked around the room and exhaled, “We’re all here.” He touched on his experiences growing up as a young, black man in Crestline. While they might have been few in number, Chatman never felt segregated.
“Let’s hold hands and hold each other up and let none of us fall,” Chatman proclaimed.
We often hear of the need to “keep the dream alive” whether that dream is the dream King spoke of, our personal dreams, or even just the need to pursuing life itself. By revisiting these moments we are actively working to keep these dreams alive. However, we must not only remember them on certain special birthdays, the dream must be kept alive every day. To borrow a phrase from Dr. King himself:
“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.”
The “fierce urgency of now” is a reminder to all of us to keep fighting for those dreams, not tomorrow, but today.
See photos from the event by heading over to our Photos page.