FARMVILLE – More than 600 people filled the STEPS Centre Thursday night to hear Leslie “Skip” Griffin urge them to make a difference in their community and the nation.

And therefore the world.

To become the leaders their own place and time need them to be.

To move from a “we shall overcome” mindset to a “we shall become” movement, he told those attending the Moton Museum's annual Community Banquet.

Transitioning to a “Freedom To” impetus rather than one focused on “Freedom From,” he said, alluding to the two concepts of liberty articulated by the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin.

Or, most directly stated, Griffin said it was time to stop pointing fingers and start joining hands to build the best possible future.

Griffin, son of the late civil rights leader and pastor of First Baptist Church, L. Francis Griffin, praised the leadership shown by his late father and by the late Barbara Rose Johns in the fight against segregated public schools.

But, he said, they were leaders for their time.

Today requires other people to accept that mantle of leadership for the present they inhabit.

Referring to the line of scripture, “Moses my servant is dead,” Griffin said those words made him understand “leaders are born for their time, not for ours. We remember them, we cherish their memories and the time spent with them, we hold them forever in our hearts, we learn from them, we honor them but…they cannot return to lead us. They are not meant for our time…

“We are faced today with a new set of problems. The questions to be answered,” he said, “are not, 'What would Barbara do? What would Rev. Griffin do?' No, we have to answer the question: 'What will we do? I can hear the Lord saying, 'Barbara and my father, Rev. L. Francis Griffin, served well in their time.' They are now resting with the Lord. Are any of us,” he asked, “prepared to lead the people in these times?”

Leadership today, Griffin said, must embrace “Freedom To” and sing, as its anthem, “We Shall Become.”

“Freedom From” and “We Shall Overcome” are the thematic engines driving crusades to win freedom from constraints placed on individuals by governments and legal systems.

Such as segregation.

“We Shall Overcome,” he said, was the “perfect anthem” of the crusade against segregation because that movement “was essentially about eliminating or dismantling segregation laws and undoing structures that severely limited the prospects of black Americans,” Griffin said.

And that doesn't happen by accident. True leaders possess a kind of inner MapQuest, an understanding of the social and political topography and how to get from point A to point B and what they are going create upon arrival.

Leadership, Griffin told them, “requires more than acting out your rage, or pain, or disappointment. You have to see clearly the path forward. You have to have a notion of what you are trying to create.”

That is what “Freedom To" is all about, moving on from “Freedom From.” The door that was locked and chained is now wide open. Walk through, settle that new frontier. Become what you will.

“Freedom To,” Griffin stressed, “has more to do with the ability to direct your own life, to make choices about your values, to choose the course of your destiny. This has to do with taking an intentional role in actualizing your God-given potential, fulfilling your purpose…This is the unfinished business. Living a life of becoming. Living a life of co-creating the 'New Jerusalem.' A community where people 'act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God. A community where people 'love their neighbor as their self.' A community in which all can flourish, in which all can 'have life and have it more abundantly.'”

It was Thurgood Marshall, he noted, who pointed out that, “the legal system can force open doors and sometimes even knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges. That belongs to you and me.”

Heart to heart.

Life to life.

One bridge at a time, individual bridges then becoming part of a larger communal bridge that enables society to cross the divide.

The 'New Jerusalem,' Griffin said, “begins inside each of you.”

And it has nothing to do with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Turning cheeks help turn the tide.

Griffin recalled a cartoon from The New Yorker that portrayed two well dressed dogs in a bar, sipping martinis. The caption read: It's not enough for us to win, cats must also lose.

Which simply deepens the chasm.

“This will produce nothing but a continuous cycle of fighting. The Hatfields and McCoys fight over and over again,” Griffin observed.

Free your mind, instead, he said, “and the rest will follow. We need to think about the way forward, differently.”

And then he asked a question.

“Who among us is ready to make a difference?”

Sit down at the table.

Break bread.

Start the process of making a new covenant with one another.

Develop, together, a definition of victory.

Frame solid structures to support the agreement.

That, Griffin said, is the way forward.

“God is always pushing us in the direction of new possibilities. Towards a 'new Heaven and new Earth.' Surely,” Griffin said, “we have the stuff in us to create a more ideal community. One where the dogs and cats can both win.”

The Prince Edward community, the commonwealth of Virginia, and the United States of America are more “the Land of Promise” than they are “the Promised Land,” he said.

“A land of vast locked up potential,” he said.

“We can create space age schools for a space age world, we can make those schools accessible to all, and we can have life more abundantly. Not just an abundant material life but rich and fulfilling inner lives and quality, loving communities,” Griffin said, quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson's observation that “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”

And then asking, “is that someone you?”

Jesus, the preacher's son noted, bringing his sermon to a conclusion, told his disciples, “He that believes in me, the works I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do.'

“We can do greater works. I am sure Barbara and my father would look down from heaven, smiling, with no jealously or malice, and say, 'very well done faithful servant.

“We can all,” Griffin concluded, “make a difference.”