One of Detroit’s oldest and busiest community action and education groups will turn its spotlight on a rarely celebrated treasure of the continuing American civil rights movement in its 28th annual Black History Luncheon on Saturday, February 15, in Southfield.
Edith Lee-Payne, a life-long human rights and social justice activist whose face in the crowd in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom became one of a handful of true iconic images of that event, will be the honored speaker at the fundraiser supporting the work of the Commission on Christian Social Relations (CCSR).
The CCSR is a ministry of Oak Grove African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, Detroit, which organized it in 1979.
In 1963 Edith Lee traveled with her mother and hundreds of Detroiters to Washington DC where, on August 28, her 12th birthday, she stood near the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as he delivered the speech now called by his repeated phrase, “I have a dream.”
A few photos of that event have taken on historic status and are housed at the National Archives. One of the most famous is of the 12-year-old Edith Lee herself, listening intently and holding the souvenir pennant she prizes to this day. It has appeared in documentaries, textbooks and museum exhibits, often alongside pictures of Dr. King, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Jesse Owens and other pillars of black history.
Ms. Lee-Payne says now that when she heard King talk about his dream for America, she indeed felt that her life embodied some of what he envisioned.
In a 2013 interview with NPR News she remembered growing up in Detroit: “I already lived that. I was able to go to integrated schools. When I was 5, 6, 7 years old, my next-door neighbors were white. Whenever we got on the bus, there was never any issue about where we sat. We would frequently eat out and sit at lunch counters served by black and white waitresses. There were never any incidents. Being at that march, I guess I was kind of glad to be standing with people that wanted to make things right.”
But the young black girl in the picture is not smiling. Instead of the rapture felt by so many for whom the occasion marked a watershed from which American society would never turn back, her face shows a sober skepticism and a determination that would move her through a life of personal achievement and tireless advocacy.
In 1974, after earning her degree in management, Ms. Lee-Payne moved to Maryland from Detroit and ran into persistent racial and gender employment discrimination there. She says she felt then that the dream had started to disintegrate. Years after a kind of peace and balance had replaced the often bloody struggle and landmark acts of Congress had written equality into the law, she found the content of her resume still overshadowed by the color of her skin.
Her response was to get active in grassroots and civic organizations to try to re-win those guarantees for her school-age children and repair some of the shaky relationships between citizens and official agencies like the police. She returned to Detroit where she has continued that work ever since, believing that the struggle is far from over, and that to rest is to lose.
“Instead of seeing the equality and the justice and the freedom and jobs that we should really have 50 years later,’ Ms. Lee-Payne told NPR, “it’s not there in a lot of places. What we don’t have now that we had then, is the kind of leadership to bring it together, to help move us forward.”
The CCSR invites the public to support its work and hear Ms Lee-Payne speak on her life, activities and beliefs as their special guest presenter on February 15.
Tickets to hear Edith Lee-Payne’s presentation, “Still on the Journey: Faith in our Future,” are priced at $40 and $20 and include lunch. They may be obtained from Oak Grove AME Church, (313) 341-8877. The 31st annual Black History Luncheon will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 15, at the Shriners Silver Garden Events Center, 24352 Southfield Rd. in Southfield.
Admission to the event provides the main source of support for the CCSR’s work throughout 2014.
Edith Lee-Payne is the latest in a line of both prominent and little-known figures pivotal in local and national black history to be recognized at the CCSR Black History Luncheon. A statement by the group praises them for their lives and contributions “advancing race relations, peace and civility, temperance, health, education, and political and economic progress.”
Past honorees have included Judge Gregory “Greg” Mathis; filmmakers S. Epatha Merkerson and Delroy Lindo; U.S. Representatives Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Teola Hunter and Alma Stallworth; Bing Group Chairman Dave Bing; and Capt. Richard Macon, USAF Ret, of the Tuskegee Airmen.
They also have included Detroit’s first woman crossing guard, first African American woman deputy Schools superintendent, first African American combat support officer to be promoted to general, a homemaker and unpublished poet to her children, and an ordinary church member who set an enduring example for men of faith to lift up their community and each other.
The Commission on Christian Social Relations was organized in 1979 at Oak Grove AME Church under the pastoral leadership of the late Rev. David E. Mitcham. Its mission is community awareness and mobilization in the areas of temperance, health, education, world peace, race relations, political and economic affairs, and other issues related to maintaining good social order, community confidence and cooperation. It coordinates outreach programs to meet objectives including: facilitate voter education and registration; present health fairs and related health activities; visit and provide comfort to residents of nursing and convalescent facilities; and share recorded facts relative to African American history and current events.
Over the years the CCSR has sponsored and circulated successful petitions and letter-writing campaigns to support or provide impartial information on candidates and proposals, and to bring public attention to various social challenges such as online pornography. It has partnered with the United Way, Detroit Medical Center and American Red Cross in its health, fitness and wellness events and blood drives. It has presented dramatizations of African American historical subjects, personal and family management workshops, and sign language classes. It has coordinated and hosted the annual Black History Luncheon since 1984.
The CCSR has sustained its mission under former Oak Grove Pastor, now Bishop, Gregory G.M. Ingram, and present Pastor Rev. Dr. Robert E. Brumfield.
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