We encourage the community to support the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial program.

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Association Committee will host the annual program at 6 p.m. Monday, April 4, at MLK Memorial Park, located at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and South Ashley Street.

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

His legacy and words are as poignant and important now as they were 54 years ago. 

His words still resonate and still speak to the potential of a dream becoming reality and of a promise to be kept.

The “I have a dream” speech was fittingly delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. 

It was Lincoln who reminded America in his Gettysburg Address of the promise of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.”

Lincoln extolled a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” 

But that proposition is only true when it applies equally to all the people, regardless of race, creed or color. 

Viewed through the prism of the violent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and racial unrest across the nation in recent years, the words King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial are haunting, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. … I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Sometime after that famed speech, King said, “I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”

The Rev. Naamen Hooker, pastor, Morning Star Baptist Church of Valdosta, will be the guest speaker for the memorial program Monday. Music will be provided by the Valdosta Community Choir.

The entire community is invited, and we encourage everyone — regardless of race — to attend and support. 

In the event of inclement weather, the event will be moved to St. Paul A.M.E. Church, 419 S. Ashley St.