Lewisburg to host MLK Day Celebration on Monday
By RealWV staff,
On Monday, January 20, the annual Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration will be held in Lewisburg.
The day begins with a march from the courthouse to the Lewisburg United Methodist Church at 11am. A free lunch is then served at 1130am inside the church’s Fellowship Hall. A full program follows in the sanctuary at 1230pm.
This year’s keynote speaker is Tanisha Hughes.
Originally from Alderson, Hughes was in the Greenbrier East Spartan Band. She was also an original member of Adrienne Belafonte Biesemeyer’s Alderson Dance Ensemble, and she traveled to South Africa on their first trip in 1997.
She is a graduate of Concordia College in Selma, Alabama where she earned a degree in Elementary Education. While residing in Selma, she worked with a grassroots civil rights organization, teaching GED fundamentals to youth who had been expelled from school due to behaviors such as gang affiliation.
Despite Selma’s 80% African American population, the city was led by Mayor Joe Smitherman, who had been in office since the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. During her time with the organization, Tanisha played an active role in voter registration efforts and collaborated with youth to help transport older citizens to the polls. This initiative contributed to the election of Selma’s first Black mayor.
After a decade of teaching, Tanisha Hughes recognized a significant gap in mental health support within the Black community, particularly in schools. Motivated by this need, she pursued a Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling and graduated from Grand Canyon University in 2019.
She is now the owner and lead counselor at Hope Counseling Center in Beckley, WV. Tanisha is passionate about promoting mental health awareness within the Black community and emphasizes the importance of addressing mental well-being.
She believes, “The goal is for people who look like me and have shared experiences to find solace in knowing that it is okay to not be okay”.
In addition to Hughes, the program will feature the Resurrecting Praise Community Choir. The choir was organized approximately eight years ago from the vision of Roger Patterson and Evangelist Erika Hunter. It is composed of singers from approximately twelve churches and several denominations from Covington, Clifton Forge, and White Sulphur Springs. They have performed in the Alleghany Highlands, West Virginia, Roanoke and Baltimore, Maryland.
The MLK Celebration is free and open to the public.
