By Tameka Kenan-Norman, City of Rocky Mount
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission, in conjunction with the city of Rocky Mount, will host events during the month of January honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The overall theme for this year’s events is “Origin of the Dream.”
The theater at the Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences will be the location for the MLK Oratorical Competition on Saturday, January 7, 2017, beginning at 9 am. Students in grades 6-8 will speak to the theme “My Dream,” while speeches for contestants in grades 9-12 will formulate around the “Origin of the Dream” theme.
The pinnacle event of the month will be the 29th Annual Unity Breakfast on Monday, January 16, 2017, starting at 7am at the Dunn Center for the Performing Arts, located on the campus of North Carolina Wesleyan College, 3400 N Wesleyan Blvd, Rocky Mount NC. Keynote speaker, Dr. Jason Miller, will be on the dais during an 8am program, which follows the 7am breakfast.
Miller, a professor at North Carolina State University, is the author of “Origins of the Dream: Hughes’ Poetry and King’s Rhetoric,” which explores the intersections between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the poet Langston Hughes. Miller is credited with the restoration of Dr. King’s November 27, 1962, speech at Booker T. Washington High School, Rocky Mount.
That speech was the precursor to King’s “I Have a Dream,” delivered later at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.
Following the 29th Annual Unity Breakfast, volunteers will team together for the annual Day of Service projects. All events are free and open to the public.
For more information, contact the city of Rocky Mount Human Relations Department at 252.972.1181.
