Two events are planned in Hopkinsville to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The local NAACP chapter will co-host a celebration at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 14, with Cedar Grove Baptist Church, 1106 E. Second St. The keynote speaker will be Cedric Cheatham, pastor of Princeton Street Baptist Church. The Cedar Grove choir will provide music.
The annual MLK Day March will begin at 9 a.m. Monday, Jan. 15, at Freedom Elementary School on North Drive and conclude at Hopkinsville Community College’s Auditorium Building for a program. The march and program sponsors are the Human Rights Commission of Hopkinsville-Christian County and the NAACP.
Tom Bell State Farm Insurance will sponsor the school challenge prize for based on the number of participants in the march.
Legislation declaring a federal holiday in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was introduced four days after the civil rights leader was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Fifteen years later, President Ronald Reagan signed the King holiday bill into law and it was first observed three years later in 1986.
The holiday is observed on the third Monday in January. This year it falls on King’s actual birthday, Jan. 15. He was born in 1929, the son of a Baptist preacher, and became the country’s most prominent civil rights leader during the 1950s and ‘60s.
