MLK Day breakfast honors Minneapolis as 'beacon of hope'

Greta Kaul, Star Tribune on Jan 19, 2026

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MINNEAPOLIS — The legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was invoked with immediacy at a breakfast Monday celebrating the late civil rights activist amid the surge of federal immigration agents in Minnesota.

“Here we are today, facing even more uncertainty in our own home, in our own street, our own neighborhood, and our own schools and places of everyday movement,” said Laverne McCartney Knighton, the local development director for UNCF. “We look to protect and care for each other like brothers and sisters, to remain united and to promote Dr. King’s vision of peace and humanity during these trying times.”

Around 2,000 people, including business, political and nonprofit leaders, attended the 36th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Breakfast at the Minneapolis Convention Center, organizers said. General Mills sponsored the event.

Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, the president emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who at 12 was jailed for nearly a week for protesting for civil rights in Birmingham, said he heard three things from friends and family when he told them he was headed to Minneapolis for his keynote address.

First, he heard about the cold. Second, his wife worried about his safety, and third, he said he heard, “tell the people we believe in them.”

“I came here today to say we believe in you,” Hrabowski said. “Give yourselves a round of applause. You represent, for us in this country and in the world, a beacon of hope.”

Hrabowski emphasized the importance of King’s cause of nonviolent protest. He recalled being taught, as a child, to sing “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” as a way to remain calm: “Keep on a-walkin’, keep on a-talkin’, marching up to freedom land,’” he sang.

The theme of this year’s breakfast was “Make a Career of Humanity,” alluding to a speech King gave to young people in 1959, encouraging them to pursue the fight for humanity and civil rights alongside their careers, be they doctor, lawyer or teacher.

“Make a career of humanity ... you will make a greater person of yourself; a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in,” King said.

Soledad O’Brien, the former CNN journalist and documentarian who gave the second keynote address, said that she thinks King was telling young people to do what they could to advance civil rights.

“We can find our way back. It will take a long time. So choose to be hopeful, to do the work of hope and to make a career of humanity, because I believe that is the only way that change actually comes,” she said.

The breakfast, believed to be one of the largest annual events in the country to commemorate King, concluded with a band leading the audience in singing “Happy Birthday” — the Stevie Wonder version — for King, born 97 years ago this month.

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