Turner earns MLK achievement honor
The Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission will present the Rev. Jesse Turner with the MLK Lifetime Achievement Award for promoting the principles of King.
The award will be presented during the 2023 Nonviolence Youth Summit at noon Sept. 28 at Pine Bluff High School Gymnasium.
The commission will honor community service leaders and trailblazers during the keynote session of the program, according to a news release.
Turner, pastor of Elm Grove Baptist Church at Pine Bluff, is also executive director of Pine Bluff Interested Citizens for Voter Registration, which has supported King’s ideas for decades.
“In 2024, PBICVR will have promoted the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Six Principles of Nonviolence for 41 years in Pine Bluff. Using the PEN OR PENCIL from Nonviolence to No Violence model in our public schools that encouraged scholars not to bully, hit, refrain from joining gangs or use demeaning language has brought national attention to our city,” Turner said.
“Pastors on Patrol faith-based mentoring has appeared in episode seven of the Queen Sugar television program. Faith-based school mentoring has become a guiding star for other communities nationwide,” he said.
Those principles also took Turner to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to address faith-based mentoring.
Community service work allowed him to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from President Joe Biden and he was the first Black person in Arkansas to receive the 400 Distinguished Award from the 400 Years of African American History Federal Commission, according to Turner.
The Original KingFest has received two MLK Presidential Proclamations for honoring King’s legacy. These were from Presidents George H. W. Bush, 1992, and William “Bill” Clinton, 1995.
“Following Dr. King’s message to advocate for fairness and equality, I led the efforts to name a portion of Interstate Highway (I-530) in Pine Bluff to honor the late civil rights attorney Wiley Austin Branton Sr., the first African American in Arkansas to receive this honor. The project
cost $100 million. I led efforts to resurface Highway 79B in front of the HBCU University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff,” he said.
He also led efforts in naming a park for King and later named a senior center to honor King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, which is inside the Martin Luther King Jr. Park, the only such combination in America, he said.
“I spearheaded a successful boycott against the Pine Bluff Commercial newspaper in 1987. The newspaper had only one African-American journalist then. Following the boycott, the newspaper hired additional African Americans at the paper and other departments,” he said.
Additionally, the 1987 boycott became the catalyst for developing a journalism program and television station at UAPB, he said.
“Filing the first discrimination lawsuit in 1975 against the Cotton Belt Railroad resulted in African Americans being promoted to supervisors, removing segregated lunchrooms, washbasins and other segregated facilities. I received death threats on the job as a result of my activity.
“I led an effort of 2,000 students from three school districts in Pine Bluff to march in the streets and assemblies, calling for an end to bullying on school campuses and gun violence in the city streets,” he said, adding that he also led efforts for better working conditions at several locations.
“God set me apart for this purpose, showed me His favor, and guided my steps to change the landscape of my community and others around the country,” Turner said.