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Marblehead’s second annual Martin Luther King Jr. Community Breakfast will be held Monday, Jan. 19, from 9:30 to 11 a.m. at Old North Church, 35 Washington St.
The program will include a musical performance by St. Mary’s School Choir, a reading from “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and the presentation of the Drum Major for Justice Award. A volunteer opportunity will follow at SPUR.
The letter was written after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy were arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, in April 1963 for leading a march that defied a court injunction banning anti-segregation protests. King spent eight days in jail, where he wrote the letter. The two men were later convicted of contempt of court, and on Oct. 30, 1967, returned to Birmingham to serve five-day jail sentences stemming from that case as supporters protested outside the jail.
The event is free and open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to bring a free-will offering or donations of 32-ounce cooking oil, salad dressing, small ketchup or mustard, or shelf-stable milk for the Marblehead Food Pantry.
The breakfast is co-sponsored by the Marblehead Ministerial Association, Marblehead League of Women Voters, Marblehead Task Force Against Discrimination, Marblehead Alliance for Democracy, NAACP North Shore Branch, and the United Methodist Foundation.
If you paste the exact “Letter” excerpt you plan to print, I’ll drop it in as a clean one-paragraph pull quote box without adding any outside wording.
