On Monday we remember King Jr.'s civil rights legacy

Several celebratory events honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be held Monday, the 25th anniversary of the federal holiday designated as a day of service, with other events to follow in the days ahead.

A breakfast is scheduled for 8 a.m. Monday at the Shawnee Park Center with keynote speaker Lamonte Calvin, pastor of New Direction Outreach Ministries. A lunch will be held at 11:30 a.m., also at the park center, with keynote Charles Norris, an itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Attendees are asked to donate nonperishable food items, canned goods, toiletries, gloves, hats, scarves or school supplies.

A roundtable discussion on King's life will be held Jan. 23 at Cape Girardeau Public Library, and Southeast Missouri State University featuring speaker Angela Davis, will host its annual dinner Jan. 29.

A listing of other events can be found in a story by Southeast Missourian reporter Marybeth Niederkorn, on semoevents.com and page 2 of the Southeast Missourian.

We're reminded of King's "I Have a Dream" speech delivered Aug. 28, 1963, in front of the Lincoln Memorial where he spoke of a day when all men would be free. Here's the closing to King's speech:

"And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"