The 24th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration will be livestreamed via Zoom and Facebook Live due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Rev. Fred King, chairman of the organizing African American Pastors Alliance, made the announcement. The theme will be “The Dream Lives On.”
“Due to widespread interest in the event, we chose not to cancel it,” King said.
The past several years, about 330 people, ranging from city and county leaders to clergy to foundation and nonprofit executives attended at The Commons or Columbus North High School. Each year, a keynote speaker focuses on some element of human rights, civil rights or a related topic linking to the life of King, who led the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s before he was assassinated in 1968.
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Speakers have included area clergy, human rights leaders, media members, educators and others.
This year’s speaker will be minister John Sims, athletic director at St. Peter’s Lutheran School. Sims last spoke at a public gathering in a rousing oratory during a rally for hope for racial unity and a brighter future held on the Columbus City Hall steps Sept. 17.
“It is because of God’s faithfulness that I still have hope, despite all that is going on,” Sims said at the gathering. “ … And this hope I have empowers me. And because I have this hope, I choose love and not hate.”
Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop and Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. Superintendent Jim Roberts also will offer remarks, as they have each year.
The free breakfast that usually is held will not be for this celebration.
This year, the pastors alliance hopes to award six $1,000 scholarships to high school seniors. Money for those scholarships comes from business and corporate donations — financial support that organizers are soliciting now and hope to have finalized by Jan. 7. Scholarships are awarded based on need, academic performance, extracurricular activities, and community involvement.
And organizers also hope to use money that would have been spent on the breakfast — one that has been free to attendees — to make donations to two area homeless shelters, according to King.
