The islands\u2019 African-American got together with government officials and members of the community at Pacific Island Club yesterday to celebrate the 76th birthday of civil rights pioneer Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.<\/p>\n
In line with the celebration was the renewed push for the declaration of a Martin Luther King holiday in the CNMI\u2014as observed by other states in the U.S. mainland.<\/p>\n
After an opening prayer led by Brante Dashiell, Ambrose M. Bennett opened the event by thanking guests for taking time to recognize and honor King as a man of sacrifice, for his ideology of non-violence and equality for all.<\/p>\n
Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente spoke of King\u2019s ideology of love for one another and expressed admiration for King\u2019s incessant passion to serve others. \u201cAmerican history is utterly unimaginable without a Martin Luther King, Jr. [in it],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Besides Benavente, other officials present included public information officer Pete Callaghan, Department of the Interior\u2019s Jeff Schorr, House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial, Superior Court judge Kenneth Govendo, among other guests.<\/p>\n
Govendo also spoke briefly on behalf of the all judiciary officials and promised to help the lobby efforts to make King\u2019s birthday one of the major holidays in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Though Bennett clarified that this event simply commemorates King\u2019s exemplary contribution to the world, he said that recognizing this day as one of CNMI\u2019s major holidays would be highly appreciated since this day is also celebrated throughout the United States.<\/p>\n
Dr. John Joyner said that the gathering yesterday was an opportunity for the group to celebrate the legacy, the life and the dream of the man infused with a passion for peace. \u201cIt is for us to reaffirm our personal and collective faith in non-violence,\u201d he said, \u201cTo recommit ourselves to making Dr. King\u2019s commitment to world peace a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitial made a brief speech as well, saying that he is grateful for this tribute to one of the greatest men in modern history.<\/p>\n
Martha Warfield closed the ceremony followed by a musical entertainment provided by Sam Joyner. (Marconi Calindas)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The islands\u2019 African-American got together with government officials and members of the community at Pacific Island Club yesterday to celebrate the 76th birthday of civil rights pioneer Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}