By Gary Harrington
DLIFLC Public Affairs
The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center celebrated Black History Month Feb. 26, at the Tin Barn on the Presidio of Monterey.
The DLI joint choir performs during the 2015 Black History Month celebration. (Photo by Gary Harrington)
The event began with the national anthem, sung by the joint force DLIFLC choir, and was then followed by the invocation from Air Force 517th Chaplain, Capt. John Runnels. Following the invocation, Army Col. Glen Fallo of the Dental Activity Command, gave the opening remarks and introduced the guest speaker, Reverend Valentine Royal Thomas, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pacific Grove, Calif.
Reverend Valentine Royal Thomas speaks to the more than 130 guests at the 2015 Black History Month celebration. (Photo by Gary Harrington)
Reverend Thomas is an ordained pastor of the American Baptist Churches USA. She is the first recipient of the J. Alfred Smith Preaching Award (Allen Temple Baptist Church, Oakland, Calif.) and an inductee of the Morehouse College of Preachers (Morehouse College Atlanta, Ga.). Reverend Thomas is a graduate of the American Baptist Seminary of West Berkeley, Calif., with undergraduate studies in Special Education and Music from the Lone Mountain College in San Francisco, Calif.
Army Colonel Glen Fallo presents Reverend Valentine Royal Thomas with a certificate at the end of the Black History Month ceremony. (Photo by Sal Marullo)
“A Century of Black Life History and Culture,” was the theme for the event with Reverend Thomas speaking to the crowd of approximately 130 patrons. Reverend Thomas revisited and shared stories from her life and her parishioners, and mentioned many black Americans who paved the way for others to follow, culminating with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States.
The DLIFLC choir ended the ceremony with the song, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” by James Weldon Johnson (1871 – 1928), an American author, educator, lawyer, diplomat, songwriter, and civil rights activist.
