Chaos or Community? King’s statement is focal point of Rock Hill’s MLK Day breakfast

Martin Luther King posed a question to America in 1967 of what path the country would take when it comes to racial tensions.

That is the topic of the speech Winthrop University alumnus Derrick Alridge, ‘88, ‘92, will give on Jan. 15, during Rock Hill’s 15th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Prayer Breakfast.

The breakfast is from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at First Baptist Church, 481 Hood Center Drive.

Alridge’s speech is titled “Martin Luther King Jr. and the Question of Chaos or Community?,” a release from Winthrop states.

The speech touches on King’s 1967 text “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”

“Fundamentally, King was pondering whether America would take a path toward a perpetual state of racial and political chaos or a path toward racial harmony and global peace,” Alridge said. “The speech will engage King's teachings and ideas in these trying times and encourage us to consider what we can learn from King today.”

At the breakfast, Alridge will also discuss Rock Hill teachers who were involved in the civil rights movement as King called school teachers the “foot soldiers” of the movement, the release states.

Alridge is a historian focused on African-American education and the civil rights movement. He is the author of “The Educational Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois: An Intellectual History” and created the Teachers in the Movement civil rights oral history project.

The project features interviews with educators from the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and Georgia who share their experiences as teachers during the civil rights movement, the release states. Included are retired Winthrop University teachers such as Cynthia Plair Roddey ’67, Winthrop’s first African-American graduate student.

This story was originally published January 7, 2018 at 4:33 PM with the headline "Chaos or Community? King’s statement is focal point of Rock Hill’s MLK Day breakfast."