In her Martin Luther King Jr. Day address Addie Banks challenged the audience at Bluffton University to rethink the meaning of Rev. King's life through the lens of Christian faith.
"While King's life is often understood to be about social action for civil rights and peace witness, the core of his life and witness was really about a willingness to accept personal transformation in response to God's call," said Banks.
A member of the executive board of Mennonite Church USA, Banks participated in Bluffton's annual activities to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by delivering her address "Transformations" on Tuesday evening Jan. 19, in Yoder Recital Hall.
"Rev. King was born into a middle class black family and educated for pastoral ministry. When he was challenged to get involved with the Montgomery bus boycott, his first inclination was to decline and care for his congregation and young family. But he heard the small, still voice in the night and opened himself to the possibility that he was called to the unexpected," said Banks.
Banks challenged students to invest themselves fully in the educational experience with this same willingness to be transformed. "Bluffton is a place where you can be transformed; and, as Christians, we are called to live in ways that serve as a bridge to a new vision of the world."
For Banks, Martin Luther King Jr. was just such a bridge to a vision of a world beyond the civil rights issues and realities of his time. While things are not perfect and the work is not yet done, she affirmed the many changes that have taken place and that owe so much to King's vision and his willingness to accept God's call.
Banks visited Bluffton University, Jan. 18-21 as part of Bluffton's minister-in-residence program and in correlation with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. She talked with mediation groups, visited classes focusing on the issues of peace and justice, held an evening Forum and shared in chapel.
Her home church, King of Glory Tabernacle, is located in The Bronx in New York City and is part of Lancaster Mennonite Conference. Her church is very diverse with 29 different ethnicities represented.
Banks did not grow up Mennonite. She was born in the segregated south where Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" ideology was very important to her. Banks moved to New York City as a teenager and struggled to find a church community. Because the ethical viewpoints of Martin Luther King Jr. were so important to her, Banks became interested in the Mennonite Church and its peace church tradition. She appreciated the declaration of peace and justice and wanted to find ways to put it into practice in her own life.
Banks currently serves as executive director of the Groundswell Project, a peace and justice resource center that began out of a ministry at her church. The group works with mediation training and family intervention with a curriculum based on community organization.
Banks finds that it is challenging to promote a message of peace and reconciliation. "You have to be in dialogue to get the message out," she said. "Once people hear that, they tend to resonate with it." Banks noted that everyone wants to feel safe, but one of the difficulties is showing people that there are ways to feel safe that don't require the use of violence.
