The featured speaker for Monday’s Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Birthday Celebration will be Dr. King himself.

The 36th annual program is from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Vicksburg City Auditorium. COVID-19 precautions and social distancing will be observed at the event. The theme of the event is “The Civil Rights Movement-Past and Present.”

“Our program is, we’re going to have students introduce some of the key speeches of Dr. King and we’re going to play snippets of those speeches, so in essence, Dr. King is going to be the speaker,” said Bobbie Bingham Morrow, Vicksburg Chapter NAACP president.

She said the NAACP choir will sing a song relevant to the speech that is played.

“The song will not necessarily be to the Civil Rights Movement,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is bridge what went on during the Civil Rights Movement to what is happening today — the voter suppression and other issues — to show that a lot of things still have not changed but we have new songs.

“The songs will be more current, but the information Dr. King delivered is relevant today.”

The program will also feature addresses by the commanders of the three Corps of Engineers commands, Mayor George Flaggs Jr. and Warren County Board of Supervisors President Kelle Barfield.

The program is sponsored by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Day Committee and partners the city of Vicksburg, Vicksburg Chapter of the NAACP and Blacks in Government and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.