January 10, 2024 - Jay Alexander (MLK Day Celebration)

Behind the Blue

LEXINGTON, Ky. (January 10, 2024) – Monday, January 15, 2024 will mark Lexington’s 51st anniversary of the observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a US Federal holiday that honors the birth, life and dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and is also the only national holiday designated as a national day of service to encourage Americans to volunteer for opportunities to improve their communities in a variety of ways.

As a member of the Lexington-Fayette MLK Holiday Celebration Committee for the past 13 years, Jay Alexander has been intimately involved with the planning and service surrounding the Celebration event. Alexander, the programming and music director for WBTF-FM in Lexington, believes the commemoration of Dr. King’s work shouldn’t be limited to only one day, and he sees that year-round community service active with many of the churches and community groups that take part in the celebration.

For a community he has come to know and love, he feels it’s a tremendous opportunity to serve and to bring awareness that the struggle is not over. “I have said this time and time and time again, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We would not be where we are today,” Alexander says, “without the fight and the struggle of the John Lewis’s and the Martin Luther King’s, those who got down and did the battle.”

Alexander joins this week’s ‘Behind the Blue’ to talk about this year’s event. The theme for the 2024 MLK Celebration is “MLK in 2024: Eyes Off the Prize?”, and he says that’s the question Dr. Kevin Cosby, president of Simmons College in Louisville will be answering as the keynote speaker.

Making a return appearance this year will be the Uniting Voices Chicago choir, who will be joining the Uniting Voices Lexington, a new group that has come together just this year under the leadership of Michael Preacely, DMA. The event will also see the awarding of two full-year scholarships, one to Bluegrass Community and Technical College and one to Kentucky State University.

If you’re interested in more information regarding the Lexington-Fayette Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Holiday Program, visit uky.edu/mlk. The annual Freedom March will begin at 1 p.m. on Monday, January 15th, and concludes with the Commemorative Program held at the Central Bank Center at 2 p.m. The march begins and ends at the Central Bank Center in downtown Lexington.

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