02/17/2025
Yesterday I had the privilege to be a guest speaker to honor Black History Month . So grateful for this opportunity .
Below is the written version of my speech .
Love Unites, Fear Divides: Rising to the Mountaintop
We gather today in honor of a people who have walked through fire, who have crossed rivers wide and deserts dry, who have carried the weight of chains yet never let them shackle the soul. We stand on the shoulders of those who refused to bow, those who held the dream in their hearts even when the night was long.
But today, my brothers and sisters, we must ask ourselves: What will we pass forward?
For too long, fear has been sown like seeds in the fields of history. Fear of difference, fear of change, fear of each other. It has taken root in the mind, passed down as belief, mistaken for truth. But hear me now—it was never truth. It was only the shadow of yesterday’s storms, the echo of an environment our ancestors endured. It is not who we are. It is not who we must be.
Because love, love is the force that binds us. Love is the light that leads us. It was love that lifted Harriet’s lantern in the night, love that gave strength to those who marched across a bridge in Selma, love that made a preacher from Atlanta stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and proclaim a dream so bold that it shook the very foundation of a nation.
Dr. King told us, “I have been to the mountaintop.” He did not say he had waded through the weeds in the valley, caught in the thorns of yesterday’s pain. No—he saw from above. He saw the vision of what could be, of what must be. And from the mountaintop, he called us higher.
And so, we must rise. Rise beyond the fear, beyond the wounds, beyond the illusion that we are separate. Because we are not separate—we are one. One people, one heartbeat, one future.
Maya Angelou told us, “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” Love is not passive. Love does not wait. Love moves. Love builds. Love transforms.
So, I ask you today: What will we build? What will we change?
The past may have shaped us, but it does not define us. We are not bound by the struggles of those before us—we are empowered by them. They endured so that we could see more clearly. They sacrificed so that we could rise more freely. And now, it is our turn.
Let us be the ones who create a new environment—not one of fear, but of love. Let us plant the seeds of unity, not division. Let us shape a world where our children inherit not the wounds of yesterday, but the hope of tomorrow.
Let us not look through the valley of separation but from the mountaintop of Divine truth.
Because love unites. Fear divides. And we, my brothers and sisters, are meant to rise and be Divine Love in Action.
By: Jill Marcy
