Porch Talks for a Beloved Community
A speaker series of Heights Christian Church, now in partnership with East View UCC and Plymouth UCC, in which social justice leaders share their prophetic voices, to provide a continued call to work toward the Beloved Community imagined by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Free and open to the community – bring a friend!
Our Annual Porch Talk for a Beloved Community took place on August 24th at East View UCC on Van Aken Blvd. (our old building). It was a great event with a large crowd and good weather. Our speaker, Ms. Connie Schultz, gave a heartfelt and inspiring speech, the Combined Choir sounded wonderful, and the reception indoors afterwards offered tasty refreshments and a chance to greet Connie (and her spouse, Senator Sherrod Brown), Mayor Weiss, and other attendees. Kudos to our planning team and to Carl Cormany for tracking all the details!
At the time when Dr. King spoke from the porch, the building was the home of Heights Christian Church, which in 2021 transferred the structure to East View and moved to the Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church UCC, also in Shaker Heights. All three churches are collaborate to sponsor this annual series.
In July 1965, Heights Christian Church leaders took the initiative to invite Dr. King to speak at the church, which provoked controversy within the congregation and the community. But despite the temporary removal of the pews by a faction of the members, plus bomb threats and protesters, Dr. King came and spoke from a porch of the church to a diverse crowd that would have been too large to fit inside the sanctuary.
The Porch Talks series provides a continued call to work toward the “Beloved Community” that Dr. King envisioned, where all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of kinship, justice, and peace.
Click here for archived information about the 2019 Porch Talks.
Heights Christian Church is a racially integrated congregation in Shaker Heights, Ohio, an intentionally racially integrated suburb of Cleveland. Our congregation has a legacy of speaking out regarding matters of social justice, particularly racial reconciliation.
In July 1965 we took the initiative to invite the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak at our church. While many people reacted with fear and prejudice, our leadership persevered and Dr. King spoke from a porch of our church to a huge crowd assembled on the church property. (See footage here: https://www.heightschristianchurch.org/history/)
Dr. King often spoke of his vision of the “Beloved Community.” On its website, The King Center says of that vision:
“In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood.”
The work to achieve that goal continues at Heights Christian Church.
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