Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

To the Editor:

I am baffled and appalled by the way the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration was downplayed here in Ahoskie, NC on January 14, 2023.

The celebration consisted of a march at the Amphitheater, Mayor Weyling White, the first Black Mayor of Ahoskie, making a speech about equality and “keeping the dream alive”, Dr. Wilson, Pastor of Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, said a prayer “blessing the occasion”, and Dr. Williams, President of Roanoke-Chowan Community College, telling about the importance of education. Some citizens were displaying their college and fraternity gear.

Why was the ceremony at the Amphitheater? Why wasn’t the march on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Ahoskie, NC? Why wasn’t the ceremony down at R.L. Vann, the first Black school in Ahoskie? Are there more Blacks in Ahoskie than whites?

My wife was the first Black female student to graduate from Ahoskie High School in 1966. Being the first at something and not doing anything to give genuine depth and credence to the landscape of this culture in this area is a travesty. Why is the Amphitheater used for such as occasion of this magnitude?

Why don’t our children know the real facts about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? Why is there always a buffer about the reality of things here in Ahoskie?

In one of the News Heralds there is a silhouette of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. advertising the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at the Amphitheater. No facial features on Dr. King. What is this all about?

Ahoskie….do you think Dr. Martin Luther King’s Birthday Celebration was genuinely honored and celebrated for KING’S legacy or someone else trying to establish their legacy?

Thomas Lee Mizzell

Ahoskie