The Rev. Reginald Baker.

MOULTRIE, Ga. — Williams Tabernacle Christian Methodist Episcopal Church will celebrate its 14th Annual Sarah Everett Daniels Black History Program at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 18, with the Rev. Reginald Baker delivering the black history address.

Thessie Baker will render the music.

The 2018 theme “African Americans in Times of War” commemorates the centennial of the end of the First World War in 1918 and explores the complex meanings and implications of this international struggle and its aftermath, according to a press release from the church. The First World War was initially termed by many as “The Great War,” “The War to End All Wars” and the war “to make the world safe for democracy.”

Those very concepts provide a broad, useful framework for focusing on the roles of AfricanAmericans in every American war — from the Revolutionary War Era to that of the present “War against Terrorism,” the church said.

“Times of war inevitably provide the framework for many stories

related to African American soldiers and sailors, veterans and civilians,” the press release said. “This is a theme filled with paradoxes of valor and defeat, of civil rights opportunities and setbacks, of struggles abroad and at home, of artistic creativity and repression, and of catastrophic loss of life and the righteous hope for peace.”

The mission of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History is to promote, research, preserve, interpret and disseminate information about black life, history and culture to the global community.

The Rev. R.I. Baker was born in Orlando, Fla., and raised as an orphan in Moultrie. He is a graduate of Moultrie Senior High School, class of 1978. Baker is a former peace officer, community leader, a former sergeant in the United States Army and currently a local business owner and clergyman.

He attended Albany Junior College, where he majored in business administration, and he’s a graduate of Albany Technical College. He later enlisted in the United States Army as a medic at Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, Texas, and Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He furthered his training by attending military leadership and management training. He received the United States Army Service Ribbon Award, Army Good Conduct Medal and many more awards.

After his tour of duty, Baker attended and graduated from the School of Bible in Washington, D.C. He was later ordained and licensed as a minister of the Gospel. He became a certified instructor, facilitator, and life coach with the Georgia Family Council, a nonprofit organization specializing in restoring family values and marriages. He was a

recipient of the citation award from former Georgia Gov. Joe Frank Harris. Baker became president and founder of Citizens for a Better Moultrie (CBM), an organization known for enhancing the lives of others. He is also a member of the Full Gospel Businessmen Association

and the 100 Black Men of South Georgia. He ministers at correctional institutions, maximum security prisons, and on college campuses.

Baker presently pastors the Kingdom Living Ministries Church in Moultrie, a nondenominational church.

He is married to Thessie Baker and they have three children. Karina Joyce, Maurice Rashad, and Javon Armand, and four grandchildren.

The Rev. Robert Lewis Sr. is the pastor.