Attleboro Program Honors Martin Luther King

For the 26th year, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Committee of Greater Attleboro will host a program to honor the slain civil rights leader. Today's program will also commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and other significant civil rights anniversaries. Below is an edited press release from the committee that describes what is scheduled to take place:

The King holiday celebration will begin at 1 p.m. with a municipal program at Attleboro City Hall, which is located at 77 Park St. The program will feature local and state representatives.

At 2 p.m., the committee will host an interfaith service at St. Theresa's Church, which is located at 18 Baltic St. The service will feature Providence-based actor Robb Dimmick, who will perform a portrait of Abraham Lincoln as he contemplates the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Dimmick's portrayal of Abraham Lincoln has toured the nation since 1983 and is considered to be one of the most authentic in the nation by historians at Brown University, the Naval War College and re-enactors throughout New England.

The program's keynote event will also feature a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Attleboro Lincoln Re-enactors, and Joshua Brittingham, who will portray Dr. King, who on the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, requested that President Kennedy write a second Emancipation Proclamation to end segregation.

In celebration of the King holiday and the inauguration of President Barak Obama, the committee will expand its annual King holiday day of service project. As in previous years, the committee is asking attendees to bring cereal, canned goods, juice boxes and other food items to Attleboro City Hall and the interfaith service to help supply the Attleboro Area Council of Churches Food Program.