Contact: Sasha Steinberg
STARKVILLE, Miss.—The president of an interdenominational movement promoting racial reconciliation throughout the state will be keynote speaker for Mississippi State’s 22nd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Unity Breakfast.
The Jan. 18 address by Neddie Winters of Jackson-based Mission Mississippi begins at 9 a.m. in The Mill at MSU Conference Center located at 600 Russell St. in Starkville.
The free, public celebration of King’s life and legacy as a Baptist minister, humanitarian and civil rights activist gets underway with an 8 a.m. breakfast.
The MSU event is sponsored by the Office of the President Mark E. Keenum, Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President, Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, and Holmes Cultural Diversity Center. In addition to welcoming remarks by the university’s chief executive, the program will include a performance by the campus’s Black Voices Gospel Choir.
Afterward, the university’s Maroon Volunteer Center will begin the MLK Jr. Day of Service activities. Volunteer opportunities are available at, among others, the Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge and Starkville’s Area Habitat for Humanity, Cemetery Association, Boys and Girls Club, Sportsplex/Community Volunteer Fair, and Christian World Missions.
A Tunica native now residing in Clinton, Winters is an Alcorn State University agriculture graduate who went on to earn a master’s degree in public financial management from American University in Washington, D.C. He also completed biblical studies at the Reform Theological Seminary in Jackson and Stephen Olford Preaching Institute in Memphis, Tennessee.
He holds honorary doctorates in the humanities and Christian ministries from, respectively, the New Foundation Theological Seminary in Terry and Belhaven University in Jackson.
In addition to 20 years of experience in pastoral ministry, Winters has more than 40 years of experience in management, administration, executive leadership, mortgage financing, agricultural and non-agricultural lending, as well as training and promotional development activities.
Mission Mississippi works to encourage and demonstrate “grace in the Body of Christ across racial lines, so that communities throughout Mississippi can see the practical evidence of the gospel message.” For more about its missions, visit www.missionmississippi.net.
Complete details on the university’s volunteer service-day locations and projects are found at www.mlkdaystarkville.com. For other information, contact the MVC at 662-325-2208 or volunteer@saffairs.msstate.edu.
Additional information about MSU’s 2016 MLK Day observance is available from Alicia Hu at 662-325-2493 or ahu@oidi.msstate.edu.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.