LANSING – Over 1,500 people came together last Monday to attend the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Mid-Michigan’s 40th annual MLK Day of Celebration Luncheon at the Lansing Center. During the program, an overhead lighting fixture caught fire and everyone was led to evacuate the ballroom. After firefighters extinguished the small fire, the program resumed about 30 minutes later with a smaller audience.
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The commission hosts the oldest and largest celebration of MLK Day in Lansing each year, starting before the day was recognized as a federal holiday.
A big celebration means drawing in big names, like a featured performance from the Detroit Youth Choir and a keynote conversation from Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr.
Dr. LaFayette was a key figure in the American Civil Rights Movement, who worked alongside Dr. King as the national coordinator of King’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign. He shared anecdotes from his life during the keynote conversation with the commission’s chairperson, Elaine Hardy.
Hardy, who spearheaded the day’s celebration, has served on the commission for over 20 years and said she considers MLK Day her favorite day of the year.
“I get to experience our entire community coming together around a common thing,” Hardy said. “We’re here to celebrate the life and legacy of a man who fought for freedom for all of us. And we are reminded of the sacrifice of so many other ordinary Americans who were sacrificed so that we could have the life that we have.”
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Hardy urges college students who had the day off to educate themselves on the day’s significance and work to combat misinformation surrounding equality.
“The best thing that can happen is for students to begin to research and look at the Civil Rights Movement because it was students who led this country from a place of darkness to freedom,” Hardy said. “Until we are all free, none of us are really free.”