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Salem-Keizer NAACP holding virtual Martin Luther King, Jr. day program Monday

Children march along Lancaster Drive during Salem’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration in 2020 (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter)

The Salem-Keizer NAACP will hold a televised and virtual event Monday to recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Reginald Richardson, president of the organization, will introduce the program and keynote speaker Irvin Brown, chair of Salem-Keizer NAACP’s Education Committee, a Facebook post said.

The annual program in previous years has featured a civil rights march, but the 2022 event is all virtual.

The theme for this year’s program is “Urgency of Creating the Beloved Community,” a concept King emphasized in his Birth of a Nation speech in 1957. “The beloved community is a community in which everyone is cared for absent of poverty, hunger, and hate,” the post said.

The event will air on CCTV at various times through the end of February, starting Monday at 7:30 a.m. on Channel 22. It will also be streamed at noon Monday on YouTube.

-Ardeshir Tabrizian