In the News

Local, national leaders attend prayer breakfast in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

1/20/2020
Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Community, statewide and national leaders gathered in Little Rock on Monday morning to recognize the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr., as well as lawmakers and other community leaders attended the Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Unity Prayer Breakfast at the governor’s mansion. The event was hosted by the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission.

Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg accompanied Scott to the breakfast, sitting at his table. Bloomberg, who Scott said was on his third visit to the city, also attended the Martin Luther King Jr. parade after the event.

The candidate last came to Little Rock in November to file for his campaign to run for president, Scott said.

Christopher Davis Sr., senior pastor at St. Paul Baptist Church in Memphis and associate dean at Memphis Seminary, was the breakfast’s keynote speaker. In his address, in which he touched on not only King’s legacy but also issues of social justice and fatherhood, Davis said many of the nation’s children had been “left behind” due to systemic issues and called on those attending to both dream and take action for those children.

He cited former President George W. Bush’s effort to add “teeth” to 1965 legislation, signing in 2001 what became known as the “No Child Left Behind” Act.
“But here was the problem,” Davis said. “By the time it was signed into law many of our children had already been left behind.”


Those children lacked such resources as adequate funding for after school care, reform, rehabilitation and reentry programs for those in jail and equal education spending, he said. Watching them struggle is exhausting, he said.

“I’m tired, you all,” Davis said. “Tired of seeing pictures of our children on the 6 o’clock news as suspects in another homicide. I’m tired of statistics that suggest our children aren’t good for anything except killing and stealing. I’m tired of an education system that suggests our children cannot learn. And for those of you who think we spend too much time talking about this, I’m tired of you.”

Davis encouraged those in attendance to focus on the power of their dreams for the community’s children.

“You have to learn to dream for your children,” he said. “Dream for them. Dream about them. And then do all that you can to make the dream come to pass.”
Hutchinson, who spoke before Davis, said King changed America “in terms of equal rights, in terms of justice and caring for those who we often forget about.”
He also defended his decision to continue accepting refugees into Arkansas, a choice he said “created just a little controversy.” King understood, he said, “the importance of giving people a second chance, welcoming refugees to our land, and also to appreciate fatherhood.”

In a prayer, Scott, Little Rock’s mayor, thanked God for King’s life and legacy, as well as his “challenge for each of us to dig deeper to figure out how we can do more for others.”

Others who addressed the breakfast with prayers included U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Ark. and state Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, both opponents in a race for central Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District.

In his prayer, Hill, the incumbent, asked that leaders work to “build a community where everyone is welcome, all are valuable, power is shared, privilege is no more” and that all “know wholeness and wellbeing.”

Elliott, in her own prayer, asked that no congregation be silent “when faced with corrupt societal norms” and urged those in attendance to take care of time, which she called “one of our most precious resources.”