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Morristown native A. Nicole Tate-Phillips told those gathered at the 42nd Annual Union of Churches and Ministerial Alliance on Sunday that our country cannot wait for action.

“We’re looking for a day where there are no more George Floyds. We’re working for the day where there is no question that there could be a black woman governor of Georgia or a black woman president of the United States,” Tate-Phillips said. “Like 1963, there is a call to action and we can’t wait to respond.”

During the death of Floyd, Tate-Phillips said that the majority of the protests were peaceful and non-violent. These protests included people of all ethnicities and backgrounds.

“They were marching together, shoulder to shoulder, saying together that ‘enough was enough,’” she said. “It was time for America to change once and for all.”

Tate-Phillips is associate minister of the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.

During the Floyd protests, she didn’t feel compelled to march, but to pray.

“How was I was supposed to contribute to the change that I felt in my spirit the fierce urgency that Dr. King had preached about?” she said. “Now was the time and the door was wide open to address racism, inequality, inequity and injustice head on, speak to it and get engaged in some way to dismantle its grip on our society.”

She received the call to run for Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Despite getting a late start on campaigning, Tate-Phillips was elected.

Tate-Phillips called Dr. King, “The drum major for justice.”

“It is a tremendous honor and privilege to be here in Morristown,” Tate-Phillips said. “This is the place of my birth and the first two years of my life, the church where I was dedicated, the town where my parents began their nearly 50 years of marriage. This is the place where I came to visit summers and Christmases at my granny’s house and played in the yard with my cousins.”

Tate-Phillips said that Morristown is her roots and her foundation.

“If there were no Morristown, there would be no me,” she said. “I thank you for starting me off as my foundation.”

Her sermon, titled “Why We Cannot Wait” was based on Jeremiah 1:1-10.

“I just want to have an honest conversation as we celebrate the life, legacy and lessons of Dr. King,” she said.

She took the congregants to Aug. 28, 1963, during the March on Washington when Dr. King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

“Most of us are familiar with the part of the speech that starts with ‘I Have a Dream,’” Tate-Phillips said. “If you read the transcript or hear the full speech, Dr. King gives the context for their presence in Washington that day.”

In the speech, King said that they had come to that “hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of matter.”

“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism,” King said that day. “Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

Tate-Phillips noted that the 250,000 people who gathered in Washington that day were there to stand nonviolently, not passively, against the injustices that were occurring against black people and other marginalized people in America every day.

“Many of you remember, some of you in real time, what it was like in 1963,” she said. “The dogs, the water hoses, entering the back of the theater, the ‘colored’ water fountains, the back of the bus, the lunch counters you couldn’t sit at and the schools that were still separate and unequal, nine years after ‘Brown v Board of Education.”

King’s “I Have a Dream” speech had two target audiences, Tate-Phillips said. Black Americans who King was calling to action to continue fighting for justice and equality, as well as the nation’s leaders who possessed the power to enact laws and policies that made freedom, justice and equality for black people a reality.

“Dr. King was admonishing us not to accept the little bit of progress that had been made as sufficient to equate to those unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness spoken of in the Declaration of Independence and not to accept the promise of progress that had been made without having yet experienced full and tangible actualization,” she said. “Likewise, he was admonishing America’s leaders not to rest on their laurels of this limited progress they had made as they had yet to fully make real the progress of democracy.”

This came one year before the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and two years before passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

“Dr. King was declaring that the time was now,” Tate-Phillips said. “No more waiting for gradual change. No more time to hesitate or procrastinate. The time to stand up and fight was right then because injustice was present and in full operation. We thank God for Dr. King and those who responded to this call of action in 1963 and throughout the Civil Rights movement. Because of their response to the call, today we have the right to vote, the right to shop where we want, the glass ceilings are breaking and we are leading companies and organizations and we can even sit in the White House.”

Tate-Phillips said that if Dr. King was still here today, she believes that he would yet be preaching a similar message to that of 1963.

“Yet, 60 years later in 2023, there is still yet work to be done,” she said. “Not just to be given a seat at the table, but to have a voice at the table. Free from racial profiling and economic disparity when black Americans still have the highest poverty rate of 19.5%. Access to adequate healthcare, free from brutality, underfunded public education and the school to prison pipeline, to be safe from being shot in our own homes and houses of worship.”

Tate-Phillips’ parents, Charles and Minister Pamela Tate, who lived in Morristown before moving to Lakeland, Florida, currently live in Charlotte, North Carolina and drove back to Morristown for Sunday’s service. Family members from Alcoa, Chattanooga, Knoxville and Atlanta were also present.

“This is more than a service, this is more than a celebration,” said Evangelist Tina Mosley, who serves as UCMA Treasurer and Associate Minister of Faith Temple Church of God in Christ in Morristown. “It is our opportunity to honor a legacy, to uphold that legacy, to continue a legacy. Have we reached where Dr. Martin Luther King wanted us to be? Yes and no. Yes, we’re not where we used to be and no, we’ve yet have farther to go. In honoring a great man, we want you to think about, ‘What is our task?’”

Mosley wanted the congregants to thank about “where we have been and where we are going.”

“When you leave this place today, leave this place saying, ‘There’s work yet for me to do,’” Mosley said.

Two awards were presented before the message by UCMA. The UCMA’s Advocacy Award was presented to Keisha Griffin-Monroe and Shavone Lovell, representing the NAACP of Morristown. The UCMA’s Community Service Award was presented to ColorTech, Inc. President Alex Rom-Roginski. ColorTech is one of the few industries in Morristown observing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.