(Video above: Glenn Beck shares more about why he chose to come to Birmingham)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Radio talk show host and conservative activist Glenn Beck said Wednesday during a segment of his program that the South, and Birmingham in particular, is going to be the region that steps up and brings reconciliation to the country.
Beck shared that he felt the nation is reaching a turning point—either begin a revival of faith and respect or continue toward a “cliff” from which there may be no return.
The part of the country where he sees the most potential for a cultural turnaround is the South.
“The South will rise again,” said Beck, “and this time it will save the country, not divide the country.”
“It’s why we’re kicking things off in Birmingham, Alabama,” he explained. “I think Birmingham, Alabama is going to be a place that restarts the country. It’s known for all of the bad things that happened in the ’50s. I think Birmingham, Alabama, is going to be known for all of the good things that happen here on out, just like Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston is forever going to be known for its good people, and I think Birmingham is going to be next on that list.”
Beck warned his listeners that they must prepare themselves for persecution, and stand strong regardless, citing the way Charleston reacted after last week’s tragic killing of 9 people during a bible study at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church by a self-proclaimed white supremacist.
“We better come together. We better come together for reconciliation and not winning. Just reconciliation. Put our differences aside. Love over revenge. Charity over restitution. Hope over fear. Courage over apathy and cowardice.
We can bend the arc of history towards justice and reconciliation and love. Away from hate. Away from discord.
Charleston changed the course. There are many that want to bend the arc of history towards hate and violence and race wars and civil war and destruction.
Those who want to stoke the fires of hatred, they lost! Because people stood together. People of all different color. Of all different faith. From all over the world. They stood in Charleston.
And so what happened? The people who wanted to stoke hate, they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know how to deal with you.
Darkness does not understand the light. And so they went for something else that could divide us: The Confederate flag. Let’s go there. Well, Governor Haley disrupted their plan.
Beck will be visiting the Birmingham area on August 28th, the 52nd anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream Speech.” Billed as a #AllLivesMatter rally by the church, he will speak at the Guiding Light Church, raising funds for charities that help victims of terrorism and persecution in the Middle East by shipping boxes of much needed aid to the war-torn area through vetted partner organizations on the ground.
The Guiding Light Church is led by Bishop Jim Lowe, a Birmingham native who was in the 16th Street Baptist church when it was bombed by a segregationist in 1963.
More information about how to attend the event will be released soon.
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— Elizabeth BeShears (@LizEBeesh) January 21, 2015
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