Monday, January 20, 2025, will be a very special day in American History. Every year, whatever date the national holiday falls on, for the Dr. King holiday, it’s always a special day. Joye Nottage, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence, Inc. wants you to know that now is the time to make your decision about how you will spend the Dr. King Holiday in 2025. Will you sit at home and just use it as a day off from work? Will you lay back in the cut and complain about how you don’t like the direction America is going in?
Will you rush to our Nation’s capitol to witness the swearing-in of Donald Trump for another term in office as President of the United States?
Or will you join the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence, Inc. and observe the King Holiday with them at the 42nd annual awards and benefit luncheon set to take place at the Sheraton Downtown Philadelphia Hotel Liberty Ballroom at 17th and Race Streets?
If you want to be a part of the 2025 observance of Dr. King’s national holiday with the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence, now is the time to contact the organization at 215-751-9300. More than likely, you will have to leave a message and say your phone number twice, and your phone call will be returned. The other way you can check into how to get tickets to participate in the 2025 King luncheon is by logging onto the King Association website at www.philadelphiamlk.org.
Throughout the year, the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence, Inc. rolls out public service activities that strive to mirror some of the kinds of work Dr. King did while he lived. Of course, Dr. King was all about civil rights and human rights. He was also about lifting our youth and speaking up for the downtrodden, the poor, and the disenfranchised. If people were going hungry, Dr. King would have helped. If there were youth who needed to learn about the civil rights movement, he’d teach it to them in a nonviolent, nonconfrontational way.
So it is with the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence in the year 2024 and leading into 2025.
On a pretty consistent basis, the Philadelphia MLK Association for Nonviolence hosts free food giveaways to those in need. They do that from the offices of District Council 33, located at 3001 Walnut Street. The president of District Council 33 allows the King Association to utilize some office space in their building, and they allow the King Association to distribute free food from their main parking lot at 3001 Walnut Street. Over the summer of 2024, the Philadelphia MLK Association revived its College for Teens Program, hosting some 35 youth for a 4-week series of workshops to enhance their knowledge about the work and legacy of Dr. King and to engage in a public service project on their own, as well as to hear from a list of motivational speakers who shared career opportunities with the youth to inspire them as to what they can become in life. The Philadelhia MLK Association offers an Educational Ambassadors of Nonviolence Club. They host an annual Christmas Toy Giveaway with major support from the nationally acclaimed U.S. Marines Toys for Tots program. They host annual Nonviolence workshops, and they’re always about the business of getting people registered to vote in a nonpartisan way and teaching Dr. King’s Kingian Principles.
The King Association was originally founded to develop programs in the Northeast region of the United States, and one of its first missions was a major Voter Registration Drive held to commemorate the assassination of Dr. King. It provides an opportunity for community organizations to educate and register people to vote.
On Monday, January 20, 2025, three of those will be honored during the annual awards luncheon, including Dr. Tony Watlington, Superintendent of Philadelphia Public School, Reginald Streater, Philadelphia Public School System, and Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller, Senior Pastor of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia. The national bell ringers for the symbolic tapping of the Liberty Bell at 5th and Market Street will be revealed before the end of 2024. This will be the 39th annual National Bell Ringing Ceremony set to take place at the Liberty Bell, just prior to the luncheon starting. Around the Nation and around the world, at the stroke of 12 noon, bells ring to celebrate the memory of Dr. King.
The Philadelphia Martin Luther King Jr. Association for Nonviolence, Inc. was founded by the honorable Dr. C. Delores Tucker and a group of local leaders back in 1983. The King Association, a 501©3 organization, is the only affiliate commissioned by Mrs. Corretta Scott King and the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolence Social Change, Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, to promote and perpetuate the nonviolent legacy of Dr. Martin King, Jr.
Over the years, the Association has grown to produce an active, year-round schedule of programs and activities that amplify the teachings and principles espoused by Dr. King. The Association seeks to develop and present related curricula, extracurricular activities, and informational programs and events within the general community and to develop leadership in working toward the prevention of “nonviolent social change” in all walks of life.
January 2025, there’s someone who will be sworn into office, who has said more than once that he wants to be a “king.” Then, on January 20, 2025, we have someone who is a real King who will be celebrated and honored Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Where will you be on January 20, and what will you be doing? Joye Nottage and Dr. William Tucker, Chairman of the board of directors for the Philadelphia Martin Luther King, Jr. Association for Nonviolence, hope you will choose to be with them on the National King Holiday.
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