(Photo by Brett Dunlap) Over 70 people attended a special African American History Celebration at Zion Baptist Church in Parkersburg on Sunday to commemorate Black History Month.

PARKERSBURG — People came together in unity to honor Black History Month Sunday at Zion Baptist Church in Parkersburg.

Over 70 people attended a special African American History Celebration service at the church highlighting the history, the challenges, the gains and what still has to be done for African Americans across the country. Representatives of a number of churches attended.

“The message is unity, love, togetherness and celebration,” said Pastor Lisa Grays of Zion Baptist Church. “We have invited many people from around the community to come and celebrate.”

Grays highlighted the need for the people attending to greet each other and share in fellowship with one another.

The service included different demonstrations from a variety of people to highlight different aspects of Black History, including a depiction of a sit-in like one that would have been done in the past where protestors sat at segregated “whites-only” lunch counters and demanded equal service; poetry readings and a presentation of a number of spirituals that many African Americans have sang over the years to provide comfort and strength through the hard times “to lift their spirits,” Grays said.

(Photo by Brett Dunlap) Rev. Deborah Marshall of the Whitman Chapel AME Church in Belpre spoke Sunday at an African American History Celebration and the contributions African Americans have made to the country and the world.

“We are celebrating and we are honoring,” she said.

All around the church were signs hung highlighting someone who made significant contributions to Black History, including Rosa Parks, Martin Luthur King Jr., George Washington Carver, Ruby Bridges, Althea Gibson, Barack Obama, John Lewis, Jackie Robinson, Maya Angelou and others.

“It is not just yester-year, we are looking towards the future,” Grays said. “We want to impart some of the things we have learned over the years to our youth and to be able to give them hope for the future.”

The Rev. Deborah Marshall of the Whitman Chapel AME Church in Belpre talked about how so much of “black innovation has powered people’s daily lives in so many ways.”

However, it has been rare that those innovators received the recognition they deserved, she said.

(Photo by Brett Dunlap) Pastor Lisa Grays of Zion Baptist Church in Parkersburg conducted a special service Sunday at the church where people from a number of area churches contributed and commemorated Black History Month.

“It wasn’t because the work wasn’t groundbreaking, but because history has had a habit of separating the brilliance from the people that produce it,” she said. “Black History is embedded in everyday systems where Black inventors improved existing designs to make life safer and easier and more efficient.

“Acknowledging these contributions is crucial to fully recognizing Black History. You cannot start your day or end your day without it. Celebrating Black History is worth stopping to acknowledge how many of the tools, systems and conveniences we rely on everyday because of African American inventors whose names were often left out of the mainstream.”

Marshall encouraged those in attendance to look up all the contributions African-Americans have made for this country and around the world.

“Pass this information on to your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” she said. “As all those books are being banned and those museums are being destroyed, they will still know where they come from and what their ancestors have accomplished.”

Many civil rights leaders have made many contributions to the advancement of people’s rights and doing away with segregation policies of the Jim Crow era, including Martin Luthur King Jr. who advocated non-violence and worked for the civil rights of so many African Americans and Rosa Parks who became a symbol of resistance when she refused to give up a bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 as well as others who strived for black empowerment and striving for change which eventually led schools being desegregated and eventually to the election of the first African-American President Barack Obama which those in attendance applauded. Marshall described a recent social media post that described Obama and his wife Michelle as apes.

(Photo by Brett Dunlap) Pastor Barry Hubbard gives the opening prayer at the African American History Celebration held Sunday at the Zion Baptist Church in Parkersburg. Representatives from a number of local churches attended.

“They are not insults, they are not stereotypes that some have tried to use to erase their humanity,” she said. “They are black excellence in the highest form.”

Grays said that faith in God and Jesus Christ has been able to inspire and carry many African American people through the challenges they faced with people like King using Scripture to talk about the needs and rights of many people.

“He was a preacher and he had a family,” she said. “He could have kept quiet, but he realized that, in his own words, that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’

“These people and many others let their light shine. Why? Because Jesus was on the inside working on the outside.”