On March 28, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and delivered a sermon that woke up "Grace Cathedral's social conscious."
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Fifty-seven years later, Michael Lampen remembers the day King came to the Cathedral. He said he stood about 40 feet behind him in the back row of the choir listening to him speak.
"He had a wonderful deep rich voice and a very commanding presence," he told KCBS Radio's "Bay Current" on Monday.
Lampen has been the cathedral's archivist since 1982 but was a singer in the choir starting in 1956 at the age of nine. The day King came to the cathedral, it was full and Lampen said he had never seen it this full and "the only other time it was that full was after the 9/11 events."
A piece of the speech that stood out to Lampen was when Dr. King quoted a poem by Douglas Malloch.
"He quoted this poem by Douglas Malloch, the essence of it was if you can't be a tree be a bush, be the best of whatever you can be," he said.
He said that was the central theme of his sermon, everyone can aspire to be something, but if you do something about it, you can be the best version of yourself in the right way.
This event that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. participated in was the beginning of a pivoting time for Grace Cathedral. It began to pivot "from more of a parish church – more ordered, more structured – to something much more personally involving," Lampen said.
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