Bernice King headlines televised MLK Day celebration

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 30 — Bernice King is headlining the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Mid-Michigan's 2021 annual MLK Day of Celebration. This is the first year in the event’s 36-year history that it will be televised. It will be broadcast by WILX TV 10-NBC on Monday, Jan.18 from 7 to 8 p.m.

King is a renowned activist and the youngest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. The one-hour program will feature a conversation between Bernice King and Elaine Hardy, chair of the MLK Commission of Mid-Michigan.

"Dr. Bernice King is an innovative, energetic and committed leader, dedicated to taking her parents' legacy of nonviolence and the work of creating a more peaceful, just, humane world into a new era," Hardy said in a press release.

"It's especially fitting the pandemic has led us to produce a virtual event for 2021, after a summer of global outrage against racism with more than 10,600 mostly peaceful demonstrations across the U.S. There's heightened awareness of systemic racism now, and our televised message of equality, diversity and social justice will be easily accessible to a broad Mid-Michigan audience."

This year’s theme for the 2021 MLK Day of Celebration is "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope." Inspired by a quote from King in his "I have a dream" speech, which is engraved on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.

For more information visit MLKMidMichigan.com or follow the commission’s Facebook page, Facebook.com/MLKCommOfMidMI.