Butler County Remembers Dr. King
Butler County's annual Freedom Breakfast was a platform for young minds to learn about the late Dr. King.
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Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a chance for everyone to celebrate and remember the teachings of the late Rev. Dr. King. The day also provides a chance to teach younger generations about what freedom means.
That was the plan of the Butler County Civic League, who hosted the annual Freedom Breakfast. The Breakfast brought hundreds of people, both young and old, to the Dunbar Recreational Center in Greenville to listen to several speakers.
The event’s keynote speaker was Montgomery County Probate Judge Steven Reed. Reed hopes his message encouraged everyone to not celebrate King’s message only on the holidays, but try to live like him every day.
“We have to decide if we’re going to talk like Dr. King, or  if we’re going to walk like Dr. King,” Reed says. “A talking is different than a walking. And the walking isn’t always easy, and it’s not always popular and it’s not always convenient.”
The event also had a host of other elected officials as speakers, including Greenville Mayor Dexter McLendon. McLendon and Reed agree, there is much more work to be done with the Civil Rights Movement. They both say the new leaders are going to be the next generation.
“Oh we’ve got a long way to go. It’s not even close,” McLendon says. “There are things that need to be done. But you have to work on it day in and day out. And our young people have to understand that it’s their responsibility to help us get to that point.”
While some of the speeches and quotes from the late Dr. King might be difficult for the younger members of the crowd to fully understand, the children at the Freedom Breakfast left with the real meaning of King’s message.
“What his message means to me is that, he wanted us to have freedom. So we could be together like we are now,” says fifth grader Tyler Mallory.
“I learned that Martin Luther King fought for African Americans and whites to be treated equally,” adds fellow fifth grader MacAllister Brown. “You should not be judged by skin, but by character.”
Reed says anyone can start a civil rights movement. And that it does not take a Civil Rights leader to make a change.
“We just have to keep working. Whether you’re in Greenville, whether you’re in Montgomery, to live up to the mantra,” Reed says. “And that takes action, that takes deliberate action and intentional means of really trying to better things where we are.”
