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ERIC WALKER/Ledger & Times
Rebbie Edmunds, center, leads keynote speaker Shekima Woodard, left, and Murray City Councilman Danny Hudspeth, along with a crowd gathered at Murray State University’s Curris Center in ‘We Shall Over Come’ Monday night. |
Community honors King with events
By ERIC WALKER
Editor
As many across the country did Monday, Murray State University took time to remember the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with its annual keynote speech and community march.
This year's Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday fell on the day King would have turned 78.
King was assassinated April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis, Tenn. His confessed killer, James Earl Ray, was arrested two months later.
Presented by MSU's African American Student Services and Ethnic Programs and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the event featured welcoming comments from the university and City of Murray from Councilman Danny Hudspeth, as well as singing and a liturgical dance.
Shekima Woodard, from East St. Louis, Ill., served as the keynote speaker for the evening. She is the youth coordinator at Galilee Central Baptist Church and an elementary education teacher.
Woodard spoke on “The Dream Keepers” and compared King to Moses for leading people through years of trials and difficulties, and not being able to reach their final destinations.
“He led people through years of dangers, but didn't forget the promise of God,” she said of King. “ He may not have seen peace, love and unity, but it can be seen by the way we live our lives.”
Woodard called for those in the Curris Center Ballroom to use their talents and abilities for good on a day-to-day basis and to make a difference.
“Tell stories of how you made a difference, not only in your community but in your neighborhood, in your schools and in your homes,” she said.
The MSU MLK event concluded with a march around campus.
Elsewhere, it was not only the legacy of Dr. King but his wife, Coretta Scott King, that loomed large over ceremonies Monday. Coretta Scott King died last January at 78.
An activist in her own right, she also fought to shape and preserve her husband's legacy after his death, and founded what would become the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
For complete story, see today's Ledger & Times
Story created Jan 16, 2007 - 12:22:02 EST.
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