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Doña Ana County NAACP goes virtual for MLK event

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The Doña Ana County NAACP has cancelled the 2022 in-person Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast because of the pandemic and will host a live webinar instead, DAC NAACP President Bobbie Green said.

The webinar will begin at 9 a.m. Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. There is no charge to attend, but registration is required.

Lt. Gov. Howie Morales will be the webinar’s keynote speaker.

“In addition to the keynote speech, we plan to hold a panel discussion which will focus on some of Dr. King’s well-known quotes and ask the panelists to discuss the quotes as they pertain to the current climate of social unrest in this country,” Green said. “We will play short audio clips of Dr. King and then ask the panelists to weigh in on the progress we have made as a country, and what we can do about today’s issues (such as voter suppression, police reform, income inequality, critical race theory).”

Panelists are to be announced.

Morales worked as a special education teacher in the Silver City and Cobre (Bayard, New Mexico) school districts before being elected Grant County clerk in 2004. He held that position until his appointment to the New Mexico State Senate representing District 28 (Grant, Socorro and Catron counties) in January 2008 following the death of long-time state Sen. Ben Altamirano. Morales is a Silver City native.

Morales is the only statewide elected official from southern New Mexico.

To register, visit us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_JEFaZqQMTLKfw_RySg5veA. Or visit naacpdac.org, click on “CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO” and then click on “Register Click Here.”

Downtown rally continues live

The Doña Ana County NAACP will host a live, in-person Martin Luther King Jr. Rally beginning at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 16, at Plaza de Las Cruces Downtown. There is no charge to attend.

The theme of the 2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration is “Always Fighting Forward.” The celebration is sponsored by the New Mexico Martin Luther King Jr. State Commission (nmmlksc.org).

King was born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia and assassinated Apr. 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King Jr.

A Baptist minister and civil rights leader, King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. He earned a doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University in 1955.

King led the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama where, on Dec. 5, 1955, Rosa Parks, a Black woman, was arrested for refusing to give her seat on a bus to a white person. The boycott lasted Dec. 5, 1955-Dec. 20, 1956.

King helped organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, during which he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971. President Ronald Reagan made it a federal holiday in 1986.

The Doña Ana County NAACP meets at 10 a.m. the third Saturday of the month at First Christian Church, 1809 El Paseo Road.

Visit naacpdac.org.


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