Special events set for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend

The city of Eunice will celebrate his birthday on Saturday and Sunday, an event leading up to two significant events 50 years ago in the civil rights movement championed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, legislation that, with the Voting Rights Act of the following year, provided the judicial basis for change in America’s society.
Also in 1964, Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize, recognizing his year’s of advocating non-violent change.
On Saturday, a Prayer Breakfast will be held at Eunice’s Bishop Ceaser Center on Dr. Martin L. King Dr. It will begin at 9 a.m. and the general public is invited.
Ministers from the community will offer prayers, songs will be sung, and, the organizers said, Christians will fellowship together for world peace, harmony, and unity in the name of Jesus Christ.
Speaker for the breakfast will be the Rev. Darren Eldridge, of St. Mathilda Catholic Church.
On accepting his Nobel Prize, Dr. King told those gathered in Oslo, Norway, that “Sooner or later, all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
Earlier in the year, as the Civil Rights Act became the law of the land, he noted “Nonviolence through the courts and Legislature are the methods to be used (to get rid of the idea of superior and inferior races). More may have to suffer, be jailed, lose jobs, endure physical violence, even death before we reach our goal.”
Four years later, on April 4, 1968, King was assassinated while standing on the balcony of a Memphis, Tenn. motel room. He was 39. President Ronald Reagan signed legislation to create the federal Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. The holiday was first observed in 1986, but it wasn’t until 2000 that all 50 states observed MLK Day.
On Sunday, Jan. 19, Eunice’s annual parade and program will begin at 2 p.m. in the parking lot of City Hall and end in the parking lot of Southeast Neighborhood Center on City Street.
A program will be held in the Southeast Neighborhood Center, after the parade, at 3 p.m. Guest speaker will be Pastor Caleb Semien of Word Ministries.
At that program, the annual winner of the Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. Award will be announced.
The award is given by the Dr. Martin L. King City Wide-Wide Celebration Committee, chaired by Carlton N. Frank, Jr.
MLK day will be observed as a national holiday on Monday, Jan. 20.