SPRINGFIELD – Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, used the June 5 Founders Day celebration and 120th annual meeting of the Mason Wright Foundation to challenge the 60 trustees, staff members and honored guests in attendance to “live beyond ourselves” and work together for the common good.

“In the times in which we live when there is so much division, there is so much finger pointing, there’s so much distrust in the land,” Morial said the modern elder housing facility stood as a symbol of what members of a community can do when they work together.  Morial noted that in a time when many services were segregated by race, creed or religion, Mason’s original home for aged men was open to all in need.

“I hope this celebration serves as an inspiration, as a motivation, as a something to encourage us,” he said. “To think beyond our selfish needs, our selfish beliefs, to think about others.”

He talked about the importance of protecting our most vulnerable citizens, those he said were in “the cradle of life, and those nearing the dawn of life,” noting that though we may all feel young, there will come a time when “we’ll all need a little help.”

Places like Mason–Wright, which provide an opportunity for elders who have worked hard their entire lives to “live with dignity” are an important part of protecting all of our citizens, Morial said.  Such action is not political, but moral, and rooted in every religion, he added.

“We must be advocates, we must be educators, we must use our voices, or life and our power, to say that people who have been seasoned in life deserve a life of dignity, they deserve the right to have wholesome, healthy meals, they deserve the right to have a place to call home that is comfortable and warm,  and they deserve adequate and high quality  – and available – healthcare services, should they need them,” Morial said. ”These are basic fundamentals of human dignity in the 21st century.”

As America moves forward, Morial said, “I don’t want to see a nation that has led the way [in so many things] ever walk back.”  He reminded his audience that in times before this country created many of the social safety nets that exist today, the lives of elders – and others – without means or family to turn to for help were very different.

“I think sometimes we take for granted what we have created in this country a social safety infrastructure for the elderly – that provides a great deal of dignity, provides hope – and that it hasn’t always been this way,” Morial said. “I hope this facility, which you have all been a part of, inspires you to do what Primus Mason did, what Horace Wright did.”

He urged those in attendance to make a commitment “to an America that is just and fair, to those in the cradle of life, and to those in the dawn of life,” adding that “this justice and fairness is not just the responsibility of the government, or of philanthropic organizations, or the corporate community.”

Morial said the responsibility for justice and fairness is everyone’s obligation – in their workplace, in their volunteer work, and in their everyday lives.

As America moves toward the celebration of its 250th birthday in nine years, Morial said he hopes the country  “will look to push that social improvement and quality of life and just and fair society” embodied by the legacy of the Mason-Wright Foundation into its third century.

“Primus Mason, wherever you are, thank you very much. Horace Wright, wherever you are, than you very much,” he said.

Established in 1903 as a Home for Aged Men through a $25,000 initial bequest by former slave and prosperous city businessman Primus Mason, what is now the Mason-Wright Retirement Community at 74 Walnut St. in Springfield, was later supported by a $375,000 bequeath following the death of Springfield-based cigar magnet Horace Wright in 1944.

At the 2017 annual meeting of the Mason-Wright Foundation, Alan Popp, CEO of the Mason Wright Foundation, reported that through wise money management at the facility and revenues garnered by its Colony Care at Home division, Mason Wright was able to return $175,000 to the Foundation to help continue its services to elders in the Springfield community.