MLK Community Breakfast Will Zoom To Belmont On Jan. 17

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Photo: Rahsaan Hall is the keynote speaker at the 2022 annual MLK Community Breakfast which will once again be a virtual event

Belmont’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Breakfast, historically intended to bring the Belmont and Boston communities together in a program of unity around Dr. King’s legacy, will once again take place via Zoom on Monday, Jan. 17, 2022 at 9 a.m.

This year’s keynote speaker, Rahsaan Hall, director of the Racial Justice Program at American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts, has chosen this year’s theme to be “The Arc and the Pendulum: The Long Journey toward Racial Justice.”

In this role, Rahsaan helps develop the ACLU’s integrated advocacy approach to addressing issues of racial justice. Through legislative advocacy, litigation and community engagement, the program works on issues that impact communities of color and historically disenfranchised communities. Rahsaan also manages the ACLU’s What a Difference a DA makes to educate residents about the power and influence of distract attorneys.

Adam Dash, Belmont’s Select Board chair, looks forward to the annual Belmont MLK event. While he
misses the in-person breakfast where people can mingle and meet, he looks forward to the perspective
each speaker brings to the presently virtual event.

“We can’t talk about race too much” and how the speaker forces local candidates for office to confront issues. Dash recalls how “blown away” he was by the MLK breakfast where former METCO students returned to give their accounts of what a difference the METCO program had made in their lives.

The Belmont Human Rights Commission, in conjunction with Belmont Against Racism and Belmont Media Center, will be the lead sponsor and organizer. The Commission is dedicated to fighting discrimination in all forms; increasing awareness of issues regarding diversity and discrimination in our community; and responding to allegations of discrimination.

Advanced registration can be found at Eventbrite at: https://bit.ly/MLKBelmont2022 For more information about this event, please contact the Commission at belmont.hrc@gmail.com or call 617-993-2795.