Published: December 29, 2008 10:47 pm            

2009 MLK celebrations share spirit of Obama inauguration

TERRE HAUTE — This year, Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on the eve of the inauguration of America’s first black president, Barack Obama, giving new meaning to the holiday.

“In my life I never believed it would be a reality,” said Jeff Lorick, director of the Terre Haute Human Relations Commission, speaking of the election of the country’s first black president. “It’s certainly an empowering feeling.”

As director of the Human Relations Commission – and with funding provided by the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation – Lorick is helping coordinate three special events to honor King, his dream, his legacy and his “reality in these exciting times,” Lorick said.

On Jan. 15, the Gary-based Langston Hughes Family Museum will host the Brown Bag lunch program in the Vigo County Public Library from 12:10 p.m. to 1 p.m. Members of Hughes’ family founded the museum and Marjol Rush Collett, a descendant of the late American poet and author, will host the presentation, Lorick said.

The Brown Bag presentation will include discussion of the Hughes family, Langston Hughes himself and tips on researching family roots, Lorick said.

At 4 p.m. on Jan. 18, the First Congregational Church at 630 Ohio St. will host a Martin Luther King Celebration Service featuring the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra and the Indianapolis gospel choir “Expressions of Praise.” Singing with Expressions of Praise will be recording artist Cynthia Stark, Lorick said.

The keynote speaker at the celebration will be Katherine Utley, a 40-year teacher in the Vigo County School Corp. and recipient of an honorary doctorate from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Lorick said. Utley’s father was president of the local NAACP during the height of segregation in Terre Haute, he said.

Finally, on Jan. 19, the Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Summit will take place in the Booker T. Washington Community Center at 1101 S. 13th St. This event, starting at 9 a.m., will feature motivational speakers, break-out sessions, performances, lunch, door prizes and free T-shirts for the first 100 students to register, Lorick said.

The keynote speaker will be Derrick Wakefield, pastor of the Freedom Fellowship Christian Church in Knoxville, Tenn.

“Our theme this year is ‘education is the new gangsta’,” Lorick said of the youth summit, which is for middle-school and high-school students. The youth summit is designed to make Martin Luther King Day a “day on, not a day off,” he said.

This year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day activities, which also include events sponsored by Ivy Tech, Indiana State University, Rose-Hulman and St. Mary-of-the-Woods, take on a new meaning in light of the inauguration of Obama, Lorick said.

“We not only remember the dream that Martin Luther King had and his legacy, but the fact that we are living in the reality of that dream right now, today,” Lorick said. “Now we can look at our young people in the eye and tell them you can grow up … and become president of the United States and it’s a reality. … Now we are living in the reality of that dream that Martin Luther King envisioned so many years ago.”

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

        

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