St James Baptist Church will host the Martin Luther King Birthday Party Celebration on Sunday from 4-6 p.m., at 1916 Duncan Ave.
Sponsored by the Unity Group of Chattanooga, the program will focus on children who were directly involved in the Civil Rights Movement.
“This year, we really wanted to highlight the roles that children played in the fight for equal rights and access to equal opportunity,” said Unity Group past chairman Quenston Coleman. “Martin Luther King is the most famous face of the movement, but our children need to know that there were kids just like them who were on the front lines marching with him so that they could one day achieve the American dream.”
The celebration will feature music, poetry, and a special memorial tribute to the Woodmore Elementary School bus crash victims.
Along with cake and ice cream, attendants can expect to see local children playing leadership roles in the program. Mr. Coleman started the birthday party to give Hamilton County students an opportunity to participate in the Unity Group’s annual Martin Luther King Week activities.
“I started this over 20 years ago because we didn’t have any scheduled events for our youth to get actively involved in,” he says. “It is important for the voices of the children to be heard across the nation. They have their own struggles and if we are going to do what’s in their best interest, we need to learn how to define those struggles from their point of view.”
For more information contact Nicole Coleman, MLK Birthday Party coordinator, at ncoleman729@yahoo.com or 314-6245; St James Baptist Church, 698-7239; or Unity Group of Chattanooga, unitygroupofchattanooga.com, 364-3501.