By David S. Rotenstein
NKyTribune staff writer
Covington’s Church of Our Savior held its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast on Saturday morning. About 30 people attended the annual event timed to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is celebrated the third Monday in January.
This year’s event featured a screening and discussion of the 2023 documentary film, “Awakening to Justice,” a departure from past years which featured invited speakers.
Sister Janet Bucher, the church’s former parish administrator who retired in 2025, founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast more than 20 years ago.
Bucher, recovering from the flu, wore a mask and briefly spoke during the event.
Our Savior Parish Council Chair Philip Stowers said this year’s organizers selected “Awakening to Justice” to spur church members to action. He hoped that it would inspire viewers to be “more connected to actual work of Dr. King and other Christian and religious leaders,” he told the NKy Tribune a few days before the event. “People will see this, see some of the history, and then be able to impart some of these things in their life and hopefully affect change in the way we see things.”
The film explores the story of how religious studies scholars and historians interpret an abolitionist document from the 1830s. Through archival video footage and interview segments, the film connects current events to conversations about faith, race and social justice in churches.
According to the “Awakening to Justice” website, “the film highlights intentional, countercultural communities as examples of interracial cooperation and equality.”
Local author, community activist and Covington School Board member Kareem Simpson is a former Our Savior Church member who helped to organize this year’s breakfast. He facilitated the discussion after the film ended.
Simpson described the film in an interview before the breakfast. “It deals with great issues about race, religion and power,” Simpson said.
“That was pretty powerful, right,” Simpson told the group after the film ended. He asked the audience what they thought about the film.
Former Covington City Commissioner and local activist Pamela Mullens reflected on the religious history discussed in the movie. “When I think historically about the things that occurred in the Catholic Church, it, it makes me think of conquerors, Mullins said. She cited examples of violence in Catholic Church history perpetrated under the banner of religion.
Melvin Miles commented on recent efforts to erase Black history by changing museum exhibits and minimizing racial violence and segregation in American history after the Civil War. “Unfortunately, today, this is what they’re trying to take away from us,” he said. “They’re threatening the schools. They’re threatening the museums to shut them down and stop the funding from that.”
Losing access to that history, Miles said, is dangerous. “Not knowing is the worst thing,” he said. “I’m 60 years old and I feel like I am experiencing this [racism] today more than when I was a young man.”
Stowers ended the discussion by recounting an experience had one day earlier. He described a conversation he had with an employee of his in another state. “This person requested to leave work because she didn’t want her son to walk to school by himself because ICE was in their neighborhood,” he said. “This is like a 9-generation American family that happens to be of Mexican descent. She did not want her son to walk to school for fear that ICE would pick her child up.”
In the interview with the NKyTribune before the breakfast, Stowers said that the real work begins after the film and breakfast end. “There’s always homework, especially when you see something as powerful as, as this documentary,” Stowers said. “Hopefully people will open up and have conversations … have informed conversations with their neighbors, their family and their friends.”