Track meet adds to MLK Day celebrations
Range of other events set to take place over next few days
For the first time, celebrations in New Mexico honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will include a sporting event. The MLK Indoor Track Invitational will be held Saturday in the Albuquerque Convention Center.
The event consists of two meets. The morning session, which starts at 9 a.m., is for college competitors and teams, and the afternoon session, which starts at 4 p.m., is open to all competitors.
“Dr. King was more than a preacher; he was athletic in terms of how he incorporated the social, theological, educational and humanitarian fields in his work,” said Albuquerque restaurateur Joe Powdrell, a community liaison for the track meet and a former member of the MLK State Commission.
“Sports isn’t colorblind in that it doesn’t ignore differences, rather it appreciates differences,” he said. Using a track meet as a venue in which to convey King’s teachings “makes perfect sense” and is a good way to “broaden the ways in which Americans honor and celebrate King.”
The cost for spectators is $2 at the door. For more information, visit www.greatsouthwestclassic.com.
Other events over the next few days in conjunction with the
Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. national holiday, formally observed Monday, follow.
The annual MLK March and Commemoration will be Saturday. Marchers will leave at 10 a.m. from University and MLK Drive NE on the UNM campus, and head to Civic Plaza. There, a host of speakers will emphasize this year’s national theme, “King’s Legacy of Peace With Justice for Our World.”
The Grant Chapel AME Church will host its 21st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Breakfast on at 8 a.m. Monday at the Marriott Pyramid North Hotel. The breakfast is sold-out, but the public is invited to sit in on the address from keynote speaker Rev. Clement W. Fugh, presiding bishop of the AME Church, 5th District, who will speak on “Keeping the Dream Alive: A Day On, Not a Day Off,” and King’s work toward creating a fair and inclusive society.
The annual MLK Luncheon, hosted by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of New Mexico, will be at noon Monday in the cafeteria of Rio Rancho High School. Keynote speaker Lee Patrick Brown, regarded as the father of community policing and the first African-American mayor of Houston, will talk about King’s life and the role of community policing as a nonviolent tool to solve community problems. Tickets are $35 and available at www.sclcnm. org; they can be reserved by calling 505-280-0232.
The 27th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Multicultural Celebration will be at 1 p.m. Monday at Congregation Albert, 3800 Louisiana NE.
It is sponsored by the MLK Multicultural Council, which this year will award 29 high school students $1,000 scholarships. A complete list of recipients and their photos and a sampling of their essays will be published on the education page in Monday’s Journal.
The Monday program also will feature music and dance performances and poetry readings. The MLK Council will also announce the winners of this year’s “Keep the Dream Alive” awards, presented to individuals or organizations that have contributed to volunteer work and other activities.
This year’s featured speaker will be Stephen Lewis Fuchs, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, Conn., former president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism and recipient of the 2011 Unlimited Love Humanitarian Award from the Bethel AME Church in Bloomfield, Conn. He will talk about what it means to keep King’s dream alive.
The NAACP of Santa Fe and state MLK Commission on Monday will present a noon program in the Capitol rotunda in Santa Fe. The keynote speaker will be Natasha Howard, UNM professor of Africana studies, who will speak on “Walking the Path of Our Hearts,” as well as the significance of the Black Lives Matter movement. There will also be a traditional African “call of the drums.”
For further details about these and other events, call the MLK State Commission at 222-6465 or go to www.oaaa. state.nm.us.