Contact: Kenneth Billings
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Racial reconciliation activist and author Dolphus Weary will be the keynote speaker at Mississippi State as the community celebrates the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. with the 17th annual MLK Day Unity Breakfast on Jan. 17.
Sponsored jointly by Mississippi State, the MSU Office of Diversity and Equity Programs, and the President's Commission on the Status of Minorities, the free-to-the-public program begins with breakfast at 7 a.m. in the Colvard Student Union's Bill Foster Ballroom.
Through a sponsorship from the Greater Starkville Development Partnership, the event will include a 6:30-10:30 a.m. shuttle service from the parking lot between Humphrey Coliseum and the Sanderson Center to Colvard Union. The local development agency also is making possible a Web broadcast of the program.
Weary is the president of Rural Education and Leadership (R.E.A.L.) Christian Foundation and works parttime with the racial reconciliation ministry Mission Mississippi. A lifelong activist, in 1967 Weary became the first African-American to receive a scholarship from Los Angeles Baptist College, where he played basketball and later became the school's first African-American graduate.
In his book "I Ain't Comin' Back," the Mississippi native chronicles his journey out of the state amid turbulent times and the spiritual discoveries that brought him home.
In addition to a bachelor's degree, Weary went on to earn two master's degrees, one in religious education from Los Angeles Baptist Seminary and another in educational administration from the University of Southern Mississippi. In 1997, he received his doctorate from Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson.
For more information, contact Latoya Bishop at 662-325-2493 or by e-mail at LBishop@aaeo.msstate.edu.