The Shadow
LEWISBURG, W.Va. – (VR) – The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Celebration in Lewisburg on January 20 will begin at 11 AM and consist of a march from the Greenbrier County Courthouse to the Lewisburg United Methodist for a free community lunch followed at 12:30 PM by a program in the sanctuary.
The Keynote speaker for the program will be Tanisha Hughes of Beckley.
Originally from Alderson, she was in the Greenbrier East Spartan Band. She was also an original member of Adrienne Belafonte Biesemeyer’s Alderson Dance Ensemble, and she traveled to South Africa on their first trip in 1997.
She is a graduate of Concordia College in Selma, Alabama where she earned a degree in Elementary Education. While residing in Selma, she worked with a grassroots civil rights organization, teaching GED fundamentals to youth who had been expelled from school due to behaviors such as gang affiliation.
Despite Selma’s 80% African American population, the city was led by Mayor Joe Smitherman, who had been in office since the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.
During her time with the organization, Tanisha played an active role in voter registration efforts and collaborated with youth to help transport older citizens to the polls. This initiative contributed to the election of Selma’s first Black mayor.
After a decade of teaching, Tanisha Hughes recognized a significant gap in mental health support within the Black community, particularly in schools. Motivated by this need, she pursued a master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling and graduated from Grand Canyon University in 2019.
She is now the owner and lead counselor at Hope Counseling Center in Beckley, WV. Tanisha is passionate about promoting mental health awareness within the Black community and emphasizes the importance of addressing mental well-being.
At the very beginning of this event in front of the courthouse, the master of ceremonies Chris Winston will introduce Pastor Greg Scott of the First Baptist Church of White Sulphur Springs who will deliver the invocation.
Mayor Beverly White’s reading of the proclamation of Martin Luther King, Jr. Week is to be next. The mayor’s address will emphasize the meaning of the theme of this year’s event. That theme is based on a sentence from Dr. King’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial in August of 1963. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
On the way to the Lewisburg United Methodist Church, the marchers will be singing a song of freedom, and the feeling of kinship in the pursuance of a just cause will be great. That feeling will persist during the free community lunch in the fellowship hall and the program that follows when there will be more singing by everyone and also the Resurrecting Praise Community Choir. The winners of the elementary and middle school art and essay contests based on the theme for the year’s event will be announced. The speech delivered by Tanisha Hughes will be the capstone of the event.
