By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor
Community members from across the region filled the Newport Syndicate Monday for the 12th annual Northern Kentucky Branch NAACP Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Outreach luncheon.
(left), executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Urban League, was keynote speaker at the luncheon. Linda Wilson, an executive committee member with the Northern Kentucky NAACP chapter is at right.
The theme for this year’s event was “Life’s Most Important, Persistent and Urgent Question is: What Are You Doing For Others.”
Northern Kentucky NAACP President Jerome Bowles said the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day event allows for reflection and provides encouragement and empowerment to move forward.
“We have new challenges today, Bowles said. “We hope that by our collective wills and compassion and wanting to organize and live in a beloved community, we can all come together to work on the major, complex issues that our society has today.”
Keynote Speaker Chara Fisher Jackson said it was an honor to be invited to the luncheon.
“As a member of the Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio, I’m so pleased to be join with the Northern Kentucky NAACP to honor Dr. King on this holiday,” Fisher Jackson said. “It allows us to celebrate those who best exemplify his dedication to the community and history.”
A highlight of the program was a stirring rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” led by Crystal Madaris, an executive committee member of the Northern Kentucky NAACP chapter.
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Bowles said the election of Jenean Hampton, an African-American woman, as lieutenant governor in November provides another historically significant opportunity in the Commonwealth.
“We’re looking for this to hopefully be a bridge in terms of moving some of the issues that people are affected by every day in Kentucky to be addressed,” Bowles said.
The significance of the Newport Syndicate as the event venue was not lost on Virinda Garland Doddy, a lifelong Newport resident and Second Vice President of the Northern Kentucky NAACP.
“This event is held at a place that, when I was a little girl and this was (Glenn Schmidt’s) bowling alley, we were not permitted to come in here,” Garland Doddy said. “Today, and for all these years, we are celebrating a man whose life was about inclusion in the very same place.”
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytribune.com