As keynote speaker for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day community service put on by the Bulloch County Branch of the NAACP, former state Rep. Dee Dawkins-Haigler talked about "the urgency of now" as President Barack Obama's second term ends and President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sworn in Friday.

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends," Dawkins-Haigler said, quoting King as a prelude to her remarks.

Silence is consent, even betrayal, she said.

"So we have to get to a point where we're not afraid to say what we have to say and do it in love," she said.

Obama, as the first African-American president, has been spoken of in triumphal terms in some recent MLK Day observances. But Trump's ascent to the White House was felt in a different way during Monday's NAACP service in the Elm Street Church of God.

"We've seen all kinds of looniness in this presidential campaign," Dawkins-Haigler said. "We now know that you can do and say anything you please and you can do it by Twitter. You can tweet insane things, you can even get on TV and say you're going to grab somebody by their genital parts, and guess what, you can still become president of the United States of America. You can ostracize any group."

People may ask why she and others keep talking about this, she said.

"Because unless you have been a class of people who have been marginalized, you will never say why we say or feel a certain way," Dawkins-Haigler said.

Prediction for NAACP

The NAACP has been speaking up for social justice "for a long, long time," but many black Americans got college degrees, bought nice cars, moved to the suburbs and thought they had graduated from the organization, she said.

"But now that Trump is in the White House, I bet your membership is going to go up," Dawkins-Haigler said.

An ordained minister, college educator and community activist from Lithonia, Dawkins-Haigler served eight and a half years as a Democrat in the Georgia House of Representatives before making an unsuccessful run for state Senate last year. She is the founder of One Georgia, aimed at bringing together elected officials, clergy, civil rights organizations and others to promote issues of interest to the African-American and Hispanic communities.

"Now I know we're a little shook, but this may be one of the best things to ever happen to us, because a lot of times I think we forgot who we were," Dawkins-Haigler said. "We thought if we had finally got a black man in the White House that we had arrived. But they let us know that you have not arrived."

While some people say that such things are outmoded, there will be reasons for marches, for sit-ins and for boycotts, she said. She encouraged her listeners to use social media to voice concerns and to run for office and vote. Currently not one statewide elected official in Georgia is black, she noted.

Noting that black Georgians number about 3 million among the state's 10 million residents, she called on them to use their economic power.

Since the Georgia Legislature approved almost $1 billion in new annual funding for transportation projects, only 2 percent of contracts have gone to black-owned companies, while federal government insists on a 14 percent share to them in its contracts, she said.

Her "urgency of now" message culminated in a call to "say something, do something, and do it now."

Johnson speaks out

Dr. Francys Johnson, state president of the Georgia NAACP as well as a Statesboro-based lawyer and Baptist minister, had spoken first. He said that King, also a Baptist minister and theologian, was "an advocate and teacher of the practical teachings of Jesus Christ," including help for the poor and mercy for imprisoned people.

"I say that because there are a lot of folks today who claim to be so-called evangelical Christians who have so much to say about things Jesus never said anything about, and they say so little about the things Jesus said really mattered."

Instead, they want to eliminate food stamps and other programs for the poor and promote private prisons, such as one in Jenkins County, as an economic boon, Johnson said. He also mentioned the proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Referring to the United States' "moral witness to the world," rather than its military power or nuclear arsenal, as its greatest force, Johnson said it is now preparing to turn over all three to "a person who has demonstrated himself unfit."

Johnson chastised Martin Luther King III for meeting with Trump at Trump Tower on Monday instead of attending other observances and demonstrations.

"I believe that Dr. King would urge us all today to build a resistance to that which is antithetical to our values," Johnson said. "I think today Dr. King would chide even his son for taking a trip to New York rather than being in Washington, D.C., at the memorial or at the National Museum for African-American History, or being in Atlanta at the national historic site that bears his father's name or at the church from which his father preached. But instead, he is on a journey to the tower of Nebuchadnezzar."

Praise music

Monday's observance also featured prayers by the Elm Street Church of God's pastor, Dr. Alexander Smith Jr., and by Pastor Daniel F. Lewis of First Presbyterian Church, plus brief remarks and readings by other speakers.

Three young women of the Agape Worship Center Dance Team drew lengthy applause with an interpretive dance accompanied by gospel music. The MLK Community Choir sang worship songs, bringing many people in the audience to their feet to clap along with "I Can't Thank Him Enough."

Herald reporter Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9458.