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MLK Unity Breakfast honors Ninth and Sixth Avenue school alumni

The Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast will again feature music and dance. [LIGHTNING FILE PHOTO]

By Lightning Reports, Published: January 17, 2020

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast on Monday will highlight and honor alumni and faculty of Hendersonville’s Ninth Avenue and Sixth Avenue schools, which served as a beacon for the education of black Americans and as regional community centers from 1916 to 1965.

Ronnie Pepper, United Breakfast chair, will serve as emcee. As in years past, the 2020 celebration will also feature inspirational music and dance performances.
Ronnie PepperKeynote speaker is Dr. Vergel L. Lattimore III, president and professor of pastoral psychology and counseling at Hood Theological Seminary in Salisbury. A former director of the master of arts in counseling ministries at Methodist Theological School in Ohio, Lattimore is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and a published author.

While in the Air National Guard, he served as assistant to the Chief of Chaplains, U.S. Air Force, Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., and was the first African American chaplain to attain the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force and the Air National Guard. He has received the Air Force Legion of Merit Medal and the State of Ohio National Guard Distinguished Service Medal.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast Committee is at Blue Ridge Conference Hall at BRCC. Breakfast is provided by Bojangles Famous Chicken ‘n Biscuits beginning at 8:30 a.m. The program follows at 9:15 a.m.
The 2020 program marks the 20th year of the Unity Breakfast. The education theme was influenced by King’s 1947 article, “Intelligence plus Character: The Goal of True Education,” in the Morehouse College student newspaper The Maroon Tiger.
The Jan. 20 event is open to the public but tickets are required. Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for children ages 5-12, and available at the door and at the Community Foundation of Henderson County, 401 N. Main Street, Suite 300.