Republic file photo
The Rev. Kendall Wright will be the keynote speaker at the 26th Annual Rev. Martin Luther King Day Breakfast this morning.
The community will gather this morning to honor the legacy of The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with a breakfast at The Commons and a message from keynote speaker the Rev. Kendall C. Wright.
King was assassinated April 4, 1968, while in Memphis, Tennessee, to speak on behalf of mistreated and striking sanitation workers, most of whom were Black. His work for equality as a civil rights leader is celebrated each January, as he was born on Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta.
The breakfast, at 7:30 a.m. this morning, and related events throughout the weekend, were organized by the local African American Pastors Alliance, the Heritage Fund, The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County, the African American Fund of Bartholomew County.
Besides leading training sessions for corporations such as Cummins Inc., Wright has facilitated more than 5,000 workshops, seminars and presentations across the continental U.S., Canada, the UK, Japan, China, India, Korea, Singapore, and Puerto Rico,” according to his biographical information.
Wright last spoke with multiple audiences locally in 2016 about the importance of harmonious race relations. That visit included a youth audience.
His previous trips to Columbus have included speaking engagements at Bishop David Bosley’s Dayspring church. Bosley mentioned that the pastors alliance received substantial positive feedback from residents after he spoke several times here in 2016 on the topic “Perfecting Race Relations.”
In addition to this morning’s breakfast, which is free, another community celebration is planned at 7 p.m. Jan. 28, the Columbus/Bartholomew County Area Chapter of the NAACP’s Martin Luther King Jr. Remembrance and Awards Gala, at Mill Race Center, 900 Lindsey St. in Columbus.
