The name says it all. The Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast will unite the Starkville community and Mississippi State University to celebrate one leader’s accomplishments.
The 10th annual Unity Breakfast will be held in the Bost Extension Center Auditorium at 7:30 a.m. Monday. The program is sponsored by the university and the Greater Starkville Development Partnership.
Congressman Chip Pickering and civil rights leader Harry Nash Sykes will speak at the event.
“Both of these gentlemen are the best of what our country has to offer,” Carson Cook, MSU director of diversity and equity programs, said.
Pickering will provide opening remarks for the program. As congressman from Mississippi’s 3rd District since 1996, Pickering serves on the Agriculture and Energy and Commerce committees in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Civil rights leader Harry Nash Sykes is the keynote speaker. Born in Starkville in 1927, Sykes was a member of the Harlem Globetrotters national exhibition basketball team. A graduate of Kentucky State University and the University of Minnesota, he went on to become the first African-American councilman in Lexington, Ky. He also served as mayor pro-tem and founded the Lexington-Fayette County Urban League. Sykes has received numerous public service awards and honors for his work.
William “Brother” Rogers, assistant director of the John C. Stennis Center for Public Services, said Sykes will make a powerful speaker for the event.
“I think it’s very appropriate to recognize the accomplishments of someone who grew up here in a time of segregation, left as so many families did to go north to pursue opportunities and was tremendously successful but still kept his connections here,” Rogers said.
Melvin Ray, special assistant to MSU President Charles Lee, said the program has broken racial boundaries in recent years.
“At the beginning of the 1990s, this was a black holiday,” Rogers explained. “But today, after 10 years of having this breakfast, it has become a celebration for everyone in the community.”
The program has not only changed in diversity, it has also grown in size.
Ray said participation has increased to the point that the university is the only place in the community large enough to house the event. He added that the university is pleased to contribute to the program’s success.
Speakers will represent both the university and the community.
Lee, Oktibbeha County Chancery Clerk Monica Banks, Dean of Libraries Frances Coleman and Rogers will join Pickering and Sykes.
“This togetherness and unity is a model for other communities,” Rogers said.