Joszette Forrest-Jones of Detroit returned to her Mathews roots over the weekend to serve as keynote speaker for the Mathews chapter of NAACP’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.

Speaking on the theme “And Justice for All” at the Sunday afternoon service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Cobbs Creek, Forrest-Jones reminded the congregation that there was a time when African Americans were considered three-fifths human, and she pointed out that when the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written, African-Americans “were not even counted in the number of that ‘all’ category.”

Today, she said, there is an African American president “in a nation in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them.”

“When Obama won, we felt proud and strong and said finally it’s our time,” said Forrest-Jones. “We felt that now we are included in the ‘all’ of t...