MLK Jr. wrote his famous speech at this Lowcountry locale. He’ll be honored there
Martin Luther King Jr. visited St. Helena Island five times between 1964-67, using Penn Center — which began in 1862 as a school for freed slaves — as a retreat and place to plan.
King’s civil rights legacy will be honored across the Lowcountry on Monday, the federal holiday that recognizes his birthday, with events planned in Beaufort, Bluffton and Hilton Head Island — and at Penn Center, where a “community sing” is planned on the campus King used to get away from the pressures of a national campaign against segregation and poverty.
“The isolated campus on St. Helena Island became a bastion of peace and a place of refuge,” according to the National Park Service, which manages the Reconstruction Era National Historic Park, “where King could unwind, breathe freely and express himself openly, saying things in front of groups at Penn that he couldn’t say on the national stage.”
Penn Center is part of the park.
At Penn, King composed many of his speeches, including his “I Have a Dream” speech, which he wrote while staying in the Hastings Gantt cottage. King practiced the address at nearby Brick Baptist Church. And plans for a mass demonstration in Washington, D.C., to protest poverty and the evils of capitalism — which became known as the March on Washington — also were finalized at Penn.
The community sing, planned for 6:30 p.m. Sunday at 6 Penn Center Circle West, will feature singers from Bethesda Christian Fellowship and Orange Grove Baptist churches performing a variety of musical pieces ranging from spirituals to well-known hymns and songs.
Eight additional community sings will follow, one each month, except June-August.
Some of the songs that are performed at the community sing events have been around 200 years, said Bernie Wright, Penn’s interim executive director, and have been passed down through the generations.
“It’s custom. It’s tradition,” Wright said, “and what better place than Penn to help that continue.”
Here are other events in Beaufort County celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day:
Beaufort
A parade is scheduled at 10 a.m. Monday. It will proceed along Boundary to Carteret, Bay and up Bladen streets. It is sponsored by the Beaufort Ministerial Alliance.
Hilton Head
A parade, organized by the League of Women Voters of Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Area, is at 10 a.m. Monday. Residents will gather at 9:45 a.m. in the Hilton Head Island High School parking lot. Presentations will follow at 11 a.m. in the Seahawk Auditorium.
All Saints Episcopal Church’s annual Gullah Cemetery Clean Up is Saturday. It begins with a drive-through breakfast at the church, 3001 Meeting St., Hilton Head.
Bluffton
USCB Bluffton will be hosting a Crop Drop for MLK’s Day of Service. A Crop Drop is a large-scale event involving over 100 volunteers where 40,000 pounds of potatoes are dropped in a single location. Volunteers package and distribute the potatoes across the community. You can sign up to help online via shorturl.at/dvyH6 or call the USCB Bluffton Campus Library, 8 East Campus Drive, at 843-208-8362 or email USCBLIFE@uscb.edu. Volunteers are needed for shifts from 10 a.m. to noon, noon to 2 p.m. and 2 to 4 p.m.
Beginning at noon Monday, The Bluffton MLK Observance Committee will host a memorial program/march/unity picnic and Gullah market at the May River Theatre at Bluffton Town Hall. There will be performances from local youth groups, commentary from local leaders and a visual presentation. After the memorial program, at 2:05 p.m., there will be a march that begins on Pritchard Street and ends at the Bluffton Oyster Factory Park, where there will be a community celebration and free community picnic at 3 p.m.
The 5th annual Black Excellence Ball “The Culinary Experience,” a formal event open to the public with tickets available for $75, is planned at the Culinary Institute of the South in Bluffton at 1 Venture Drive on Friday.
