Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Selma University President Dr. Stanford Angion delivered a powerful message at the 161st Commemoration Celebration for President Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year’s Day. The event was held at the Christian Light Missionary Baptist Church in Safford.

The Emancipation Proclamation, signed on Jan. 1, 1863, declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

The theme for the 2024 event was  “African-American and the Arts,” which Angion discussed in his speech, entitled, “The Story of a People.”

“The power of a people’s story provides an invaluable source of strength for uplifting their communities and inspiring a spirit of generative servant leadership to their posterity,’’ Angion said. “It helps to guide their journey toward purposeful living and it provides a rallying point, where they may gather and reorganize when facing extreme adversity.”

Angion, a member  of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.  continued and referred to the Bible as a record of God’s plan for the redemption of mankind.

“Nowhere is the power of a people’s story demonstrated more clearly than in the pages of the Bible, which itself provides a historical and inspirational record of God, his people, and his plan for the redemption of mankind,” Angion said.

“This story, the Bible, is arguably the most effective example for capturing, interpreting, and sharing a people’s story, in that it is a living model of the process that can be observed, studied, and engaged presently. The problem is that many of us African Americans don’t know our own story well enough, so we are condemned to wear the mask that has been given to us.’’

Dallas County Probate Judge Jimmy Nunn and Dallas County Commissioner Curtis Williams were among the elected officials who attended the event.