A Columbus event that honored the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for nearly a decade is no more, but the city will have several events to celebrate the message of the civil rights icon.
For Learnerd Dickerson, one of the event’s original organizers since its beginnings in 2005, the decision to not put on the event this year was a difficult one.
As the event grew, so did the cost. It cost $30,000 to $40,000 to put it on, Dickerson said. This year, Dream365 organizers faced a $9,000 deficit.
“When we realized we couldn’t get the funding, we had to make a tough decision,” Dickerson said.
The Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau gave around $15,000 to the event in years past, according to CVB president Nancy Carpenter. But last year CVB implemented a cap limiting donations for single events to $10,000. Dickerson said the group had trouble gathering all the resources they needed from the community.
Rev. Tony Montgomery, another primary organizer of Dream365, told The Dispatch he is proud of what the event accomplished over the years and that he is glad the event went out on top. Montgomery said organizers knew this year was not likely to happen. Both Dickerson and Montgomery gave praise to the volunteers who helped Dream365 through the years.
“It speaks volumes about what you can do when you unify,” Montgomery said. “It’s amazing what you can do when people work for you and through you.”
Dream365 inspired many other communities to bolster their own MLK celebrations. This brought Dickerson and other event organizers joy and pride.
“Our purpose was to make sure we offered something for everybody,” Dickerson said. “That’s what the dream was about.”
Dream365 was integrated into the Columbus Municipal School District curriculum. Students submitted art and essays on civil rights. The event gave back to students, too — Dickerson said Dream365 gave over $35,000 in scholarships to graduating seniors. The money came from sponsors, community members and the city.
While the eight days of celebration is no more this year, the community will still have ample opportunity to remember, celebrate and honor the legacy of Dr. King.
“We hope great success to the people continuing the King celebration,” Montgomery said.
‘It is not a moment, it is a movement’
Rev. Kamal Karriem is the chairman of the Martin Luther King Committee in charge of planning this year’s celebration. He said this year’s events will go back to the grassroots style that King embodied. The idea is to promote progress and growth through spiritual events, Karriem said.
Friday night will begin the celebration with a prayer vigil at the Lowndes County Courthouse at 6 p.m.
Karriem said Friday will focus on issues important to the black community such as black-on-black crime, community-police interaction and economic conditions.
A prayer breakfast Saturday will be held at Stephens Chapel M.B. Church at 9:30 a.m. The event will feature speaker Flonzie Brown-Wright, who in 1968 became the first African American to hold office since Reconstruction when she was elected election commissioner of Madison County. The breakfast will be $10, with tickets available through the Columbus Arts Council at the Rosenzweig Arts Center and at Helen’s Kitchen restaurant.
The celebration will wrap-up Monday with a unification march from M.U. Baptist Church to the Hunt School and Museum. Karriem is hopeful the march will be a multicultural event.
“It’s our hope that people will learn from the experience of Dr. King,” Karriem said. “It’s not a black or white thing, it’s about coming together and being where we want to be as a community.”
The march will end in a convocation at Hunt School where participants will be addressed by Sen. David Jordan, a state representative from Greenwood who fought for equality in Mississippi for years and who was present at the Emmett Till trial.
In Starkville, residents will join together for the annual NAACP march at 1:30 p.m. Monday.
Participants will gather on Washington Street and walk across to the old jailhouse, continue down Jefferson Street to Jackson Street and come back to Main Street. Historically, marchers continue to the Oktibbeha County courthouse, but this year will head to Unity Park, located between Mugshots and the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Department. There, organizers will unveil the long-awaited civil rights monuments, which have been covered by tarps for years.
Learning about the Dream
While Dream365 is off for this year, events still abound in Columbus to celebrate King. In 2012, the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library in partnership with the Mississippi University for Women and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History applied for a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Columbus-Lowndes Public Library was one of 473 institutions awarded the grant nationwide.
The grant recipients each have a time assigned to put on the events, the library happened to be assigned January to February this year.
The grant includes a set of four movies, each of which represents a different time and theme of the civil rights movement and the struggle for equality and $1,200 to help bring in speakers and provide food for a series of eight educational events.
The series — “Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle” — is part of the National Endowment for the Humanities “Bridging Cultures” program. Mona Vance-Ali, archivist at Columbus-Lowndes Public Library, said the library had originally planned for the series to piggy back on to the Dream365 celebration.
“Created Equal” is an eight event series that kicks off Jan. 13 at Rosenzweig Arts Center with professional storyteller Barbara Jones Clark. Six of the eight events will be held at the library. The events run through the end of February.
“This is an opportunity to show the next generation the struggle for civil rights,” Vance-Ali said.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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Rev. Tony Montgomery
