The 24th Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Breakfast Celebration was held Monday at the Greater Columbus Convention Center and featured the Columbus Children’s Choir, several student speakers and a poetry reading by Sonia Sanchez. The crowd of nearly 3,000 included Ohio First Lady Frances Strickland, Columbus City Council President Michael Mentel and keynote speaker Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr.
One attendee, Charles Martin, comes every year to support Dr. King’s legacy.
“We had an excellent speaker and I enjoyed him. He’s letting us know how far we’ve come but how far we need to go,” Martin said. “There’s still injustice out here, still prejudice out here against people of our color.”
Smith agrees that racism is alive and well.
“A black man in the White House is not going to eradicate systemic racism that’s ingrained historically in the institutions of America, ingrained in corporate America, in the whole American values’ system of loving things and using people instead of loving people and using things,” Smith said in an interview. “Dr. King was concerned about these issues; he was more than a dreamer.”
Another attendee, Kristie Hollinger, said Smith’s message was powerful.
“I think he had the foresight that a lot of people didn’t have about coming together, living together in one nation as equals and I just think that he could see the vision of unity and how powerful that is for the world and peace,” Hollinger said.
She said the only way to help make his dream become a reality is through community involvement. The first step to this involvement, Smith said, begins with the individual.
“Before we can produce social change, first it must start with the individual, an individual transformation,” Smith said.
Claire Racine can be reached at [email protected].
