The 36th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast was held Monday morning at the Vicksburg Convention Center.

The breakfast was held by the nonprofit Omicron Rho Lambda Educational Foundation, Inc. of the Omicron Rho Lambda Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Franternity, Inc.

At the beginning of the ceremony, the president of the chapter Brother Willie Thomas Sr. addressed the crowd.

“I would just like to challenge us, in the spirit of Martin Luther King, to look into the areas where you can have influence, look into the areas where you can elevate, but more importantly, look into the areas where you can bring people together for the better, for good for mankind,” he said.

The organization supports education through donations and fundraising efforts as well as facilitating programs like scholarships, youth groups, educational trips, and the breakfast that was held on Monday.

The guest speaker at the event was Col. Christian Patterson, PhD, who is commander of the station at the United States Army Corp of Engineers Engineering, Research, and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg. He is the first African American to hold the position.

“On August 16, 1967, in Atlanta, King addressed attendees during the tenth annual session of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and asked the same question: ‘Where do we go from here?’ As he delivered this inquiry, he followed up by saying that in order to answer the question, we must first honestly recognize where we are now,” Patterson said. “We are well aware of the challenges of those days, 57 years ago, as racism and prejudice fueled Black unemployment, poverty, and a deficit in societal resources. Reverend King offered several directions for us to go in. One was organizing strength into economic and political power. Another was to be concerned about seeing a better world. And a final recommendation was to ask societal questions. Today, almost six decades later, these directions still resonate and apply to us today. They present opportunities for us to keep this dream alive and improve society across our land for all Americans.”

At the event, seven local students were selected to each receive a $100 scholarship for the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Seventh Grade Essay Contest.

Proceeds from the breakfast help fund scholarships granted by the foundation as well as the Project Alpha Leadership Club.