A who’s who of Georgia leaders paid tribute to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. on Friday in downtown Atlanta, not far from the civil rights icon’s childhood home.
State officials and members of King’s family attended Georgia’s 39th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration of Service, held at the State Capitol. State offices are closed Monday for the holiday honoring the activist, who would have turned 94 on Sunday.
Keynote speaker, CEO and President of Georgia Power, Chris Womack, was introduced by former Columbus Democratic Rep. Calvin Smyre, who returned to the Gold Dome while awaiting confirmation as US Ambassador to the Bahamas.
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns credited Smyre with his role in making King’s birthday a state holiday in 1984 and securing support for a statue in his honor on the grounds of the Georgia Capitol in 2017, a strategy to neutralize King the opposition. Legislation to introduce a state holiday had stalled in the Georgia legislature until the previous year when the US Congress declared the third Monday in January a federal holiday in honor of the king.
Womack, a black man who became CEO and chairman of the state’s largest utility company in 2021, said King’s dream remained unfulfilled long after the 1776 Declaration of Independence decreed that “all men are created equal.”
As part of Womack’s call to keep King’s legacy alive, companies should continue to diversify their workforces and provide basic needs to those in need, Womack said.
“We must not accept this state of affairs as a reality,” he said. “We must not leave this state unattended.”
“We need to work collaboratively with people who are trying to help, whether it’s in food kitchens, whether it’s emergency shelter, or if there’s a need for additional housing,” Womack said. “We cannot accept things like homelessness as a reality. We need to set goals in our community that we will eliminate completely (homelessness).”
Several prizes were awarded at the state festival. The Rita Jackson Samuels Founders Award went to Wanda Okunoren-Meadows, CEO of Forest Park; Albany’s civil rights activist JT Johnson was honored with the Andrew J. Young Humanitarian Award; Alabama Rev. Fred Taylor received the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery Civil Rights Award; and Georgia Senator Emmanuel Jones, a Democrat from Columbus, received the John Lewis Lifetime Achievement Award.
King’s great-niece Farris Christine Watkins was also presented with the King’s Holiday Proclamation.
On Sunday, President Joe Biden and US Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock King will pay their own tributes at the church in downtown Atlanta, which King presided over for the nine years leading up to his death.
In 2005, Warnock was appointed pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, preaching from the same pulpit where King once preached in his powerful and eloquent voice.
According to a national poll conducted by Harris a year before King’s assassination, 75% of the American public disapproved of him. Jim Crow advocates in the Deep South, as well as many moderate whites elsewhere in the nation, opposed full integration and equal treatment for blacks.
Before his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, King preached powerfully and spread his call for nonviolent social change in many cities. King was 39 years old when he was murdered.
Democratic state senator Nikki Merritt said Friday that the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus remains committed to realizing many of King’s unfulfilled dreams, including improved access to health care, jobs and education.
Governor Brian Kemp said at the state capitol ceremony that he views racial progress in Georgia as something that lives on in the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp offered a prayer at Friday’s ceremony for those who suffered from the tornadoes that ripped through Georgia the day before. The storm claimed the lives of a five-year-old boy and a Department of Transportation worker who was working to clear a road.
Kemp said King’s message of racial equality and moral responsibility still resonates today as he noted King faced hatred, prejudice and threats against his family.
Kemp said he sees racial progress in Georgia as something that lives on in the legacy of the civil rights leader who has faced and overcome so many obstacles.
“Every year we celebrate this occasion, not only to remember Dr. King or his wisdom, not only to celebrate his contribution to our state and nation, but also to remind us of his mission, his deeds and his inspirational message,” said Kemp. “Remembering the man is remembering the man, and each of us must consider how, in our own unique way, we build on his timeless legacy.”
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