King Day Celebration rescheduled, three events set for Sunday and Monday

ALBANY — While the recent storm resulted in the postponement of the main Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration dinner until Feb. 20, three other events will go on as planned.

The annual King Day Celebration, which has been conducted at the Albany Civic Center, will take place at a different location as well — Albany State University West Campus.

Other events start Sunday, which marks the 88th birthday of civil rights leader King, who was assassinated in 1968. The federal and state holiday observing his birthday is Monday, with two events scheduled in Albany.

Sunday at 11 a.m., Shiloh Baptist Church at 325 Whitney Ave. will conduct its Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Celebration.

The church, which the Georgia Historical Society has recognized as the birthplace of the Albany Movement in 1961, will conduct a special service that will feature Rutha Harris and the Freedom Singers, Dougherty County School Board member Geraldine Hudley, civil rights activists Charles and Shirley Sherrod, educator and former School Board member C.W. Grant, Albany Civil Rights Institute Director Frank Wilson, former Albany Mayor Willie Adams and the Rev. Charles Burney.

At 7:30 a.m. Monday, The H.E.A.R.T. (Hands Extended Across Reaching Together) Organization will conduct its 37th annual MLK Breakfast program at Mount Zion Baptist Church on Westover Boulevard. Organization President Anne Milledge stressed Friday that the breakfast was still on and that the early morning event should not to be confused with the postponed King Day Celebration dinner.

“My phone has been ringing off the hook from people asking why we had canceled the breakfast. We have not canceled the event, but people are confusing two different events,” Milledge said. “We started The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Breakfast in 1980 with a small group of concerned employees of the Albany Procter & Gamble plant at a Shoney’s restaurant.

“The group combined their efforts to keeping the dream of Dr. King alive by recognizing the need for this great country and community to come together in true fellowship and love.”

The breakfast is free and open to the public.

Later Monday, the second King Day Walk from Shiloh Baptist Church on Whitney Avenue to the old jail site on Pine Avenue will take place as scheduled. The walk is a re-enactment of the civil rights marches of the 60s and the beginning of the Albany Movement.

Henry Mathis, an organizer if the event, said the walk will begin at noon and will follow a similar path to last year’s — east to the Charles Sherrod Civil Rights Memorial Park; west to the city’s Harlem district, site of the former Ritz Cultural Center and the bus station that was a key part of the Albany Movement; across Oglethorpe Boulevard to Pine Avenue and the site of the former jail where civil rights participants, including King, were held.

“I expect the crowd to be much larger on Monday,” he said. “We expected some pastors, government officials and school system leaders to be there. Last year, we didn’t see many of the city’s leaders, and those are the very people we should see out in front of this walk.”

Mathis called the walk a remembrance of history.

“Unfortunately, though, a lot of people — especially the younger people — don’t know this history. They need to understand how far we as a country have come in those 400 years, and even in the last 40 to 50 years,” Mathis said. “Sadly, so many people are willing to accept what men like Martin King did and just lay down, satisfied. They’ve closed their eyes to the problems that continue to exist in our neighborhoods.”

Several other MLK remembrance events were conducted last week.

Last Thursday at Albany State University, football coach Herman Boone, whose life was depicted in the film “Remember The Titans” delivered the keynote address at the university’s annual MLK convocation.

In 1971, Boone faced the challenge of uniting black and white players from rival schools to create the Titan football team at the newly formed T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va.

Last Wednesday, a ceremony at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany celebrated the civil rights leader with “A Day On, Not A Day Off” theme.

Pastor Darnell Lundy, director of The Bridge at Open Arms, spoke of the occasion as a special day for him because it is a reminder of where he comes from and the struggle for progress that has been made — placing special emphasis on the activists of the Civil Rights Movement.

“They had a dream that we would live,” he said. “I am a product of what they have died for. Strength is never at the top, it is always at the bottom because the bottom is what is holding it up.”

Carlton Fletcher and Jennifer Parks contributed to this story.