5th Annual MLK Day Breakfast Set For Monday at Leslie Town Center

The Cookeville Putnam County NAACP will honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King at its fifth annual MLK Day breakfast Monday morning.

Cookeville NAACP President Thomas Savage said the event will include singing as well as reading from Dr. King’s work. Savage said the event allows adults to fill in the blanks for younger generations about the history of African Americans.

“You’re only as good as your history, so we want to do a great reflection on our history, and then we want to make sure that every African American is participating in this society to its fullest,” Savage said.

Lane College President Logan Hampton will be the event’s keynote speaker. Lane College is a historically black college in Jackson. Savage said the group will discuss Martin Luther King’s dream, and consider whether that dream has come full circle.

“We know that there’s still a lot of racism,” Savage. “We don’t want anyone going around saying, “the sky is falling and it’s hitting me on the head,” but we want to educate the people in our community when they know they’ve been in a racist-type situation.”

Savage said he hopes the discussion had during the breakfast inspires continued progress in the community. He said the NAACP is planning a “full-court press” on voter registration. He said he plans to remind attendees that black people still have not been voting very long in this country, at least not without fear of harm.

He said he appreciates the diversity of the Cookeville branch of the NAACP. Savage said black and brown communities feel embraced by advocates from many different walks of life every year that they put on this event.

“You’ll see that all of God’s people will be in the room,” Savage said. “We’ve been doing this for a while now, and it’s just getting stronger. We get excited. There’s been a lot of planning for this over the course of several months.”

The breakfast begins at 8am at Leslie Town Centre. Admission is $15.