Reston Community Center organized its annual Reston MLK Birthday Celebration from Jan. 13-15. Program offerings focused on “service, education, music, and conviviality under the banner of Dr. King's message.” 

RCC held its Community Service Projects on Saturday, Jan. 13, from 9 a.m. to noon at the Cathy Hudgins Community Center at Southgate. RCC collaborated with the Reston Association, Cornerstones and The Closet of the Greater Herndon Area, Inc. 

The Cohen family of Reston, Kayel, Marc, Ariela and Amar are ready to enjoy the MLK Birthday Celebration, Especially for Youth.  

 

Later that afternoon at 4 p.m., RCC held its Musical Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Reston Community Center. The program featured Mark Irchai, music director finalist, guest artists Alia Waheed, Beverly Cosham, Gilbert Pryor and the New World Order Horns Ensemble.

On Monday, Jan. 15, RCC held the MLK Birthday Celebration, Especially for Youth, at Hunter Woods from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. According to Jeff Morgan, youth/teen program assistant, they based the art-themed activities on Dr. King's life and the Civil Rights Movement. Peter McCory, ‘The One Man Band’ performed, and later, the youth watched the animated adventure video, ‘Our Friend Martin.’ It told the life and times of Martin Luther King through the voices of Whoope Goldberg, John Travolta, James Earl Jones, and others. RCC provided lunch.

RCC sold out at 11 a.m. MLK Keynote Speaker Address featuring Rev. William J. Barber held at Reston Community Center Hunter Woods in the 260-seat CentreStage theater. A community luncheon followed.

Read Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

It will be sixty-one years since Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the National Mall in front of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marching for freedom, justice, and equality and delivered his “I Have a Dream" speech on August 28, 1963. It will be 56 years this year since King was assassinated on April 1, 1968.

King’s legacy continues in Fairfax County. The Connection compiled photographs of events in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.