Page 34 - mlk 2023 booklet_no program_V2.pdf

Dear Friends, January 16, 2023

On behalf of the City of East Lansing, I am honored to welcome
you to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of Mid-
th
Michigan’s 38 Annual Day of Celebration, celebrating the life
and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This year’s gathering of distinguished individuals from throughout
the region will reflect upon the 2023 theme: “Now is the time to
lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the
solid rock of brotherhood.”

This year’s program will feature an extraordinary guest speaker: Fred Gray, a
pioneering civil rights attorney who has fought and won a myriad of legal challenges in
the battle against racial discrimination. One of his earliest cases was defending civil
rights icon Rosa Parks in 1955 when she was arrested for not giving up her seat on a
bus to a white man, igniting the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Fred Gray also argued for the
participants in the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, earning an official apology from
the White House in 1997. Fred Gray continues the practice of law even today at the age
of 91, and last summer he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s
highest award for a civilian, from President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Each year, this day of celebration helps us pay tribute to one of America’s greatest civil
rights leaders as well as the civil rights movement as a whole. The event also continues
to inspire attendees to begin a new year dedicated to service and outreach to
individuals in need in our community, while also continuing to strive for equality for all
people. Now, nearly 60 years from when Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream”
speech, that renewed sense of service and outreach is still so important. I would like to
thank the MLK Commission for the work they do to host this event each year. I am truly
honored to be a part of it.

In Friendship,

Ron Bacon
Mayor, City of East Lansing

34 • 38th Annual MLK Day of Celebration