b'BODY OF CHRIST NEWS MAGAZINEAs 2024 Award Recipients,Wellington and Wilma Webb stated, We arehonored to receive this award from the Colorado Black Roundtable and we intend to continue our wok, which is increasingly important due to world chaos and powerful challenges to human decency, peace, democracy, civility, and civil rights. Celebrating95 YEARSColorados 40th Anniversary Celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.s 95th BirthdayI nmanypartsoftheworldincludingColorado,diverse volunteergroup.WellingtonandWilmaWebb people will celebrate the 95th birthday of Rev. Dr.remainvigilanttodaytoensurethatColoradoknows Martin Luther King, Jr., January 15, 2024.And lestDr. Kings sacrifice and how his vision remains relevant itisforgotten,theHonorablesWellingtonandtoday.They said, The MLK Holiday is a day on and not a Wilma Webb did the hard work to make the Coloradoday off, to honor Dr. Kings life and legacy.Holiday a reality.Wilma Webb is known as the motherA mid great opposition a federal bill was introduced of Colorados MLK Holiday, which is considered the 2ndlargestMLKcelebrationintheUnitedStates.in 1968, and passed in 1983 establishing a Federal Duringthis40thColoradoMLKHolidayAnniversary,HolidaythethirdMondayofJanuarytohonor itshouldbenotedthattheinitialbipartisanDr. King January 15th birthday. The first national legislationestablishingtheColoradoKingHolidayMLK Holiday celebration was held in 1986.Dr. King was was introduced by Wellington Webb when he servedassassinated April 4, 1968, at age 39 on a balcony at the in the Colorado Legislature. However, after his yearlyLorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee.He was survived attempts failed, and he left the legislature to serve asby his wife Hon. Coretta Scott King and four very young then President Jimmy Carters Region 8, Director of USchildren, Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter and Bernice. Before Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW),his murder, he was the most influential leader and an his successor the late Denver attorney King Trimbleeloquent spokesman in the global civil and human rights tried but was unable to pass the bill. Then, Wilmamovement.AsaprominentBaptistminister,scholar, Webb was elected to the Colorado Legislature andpolitical and social activist, his unparalleled works led to while busy on the powerful Joint Budget Committee,many accolades, and in 1964 he was awarded the Nobel she made passage of the MLK State Holiday law herPeacePrizeforhisongoingnon-violentstrugglefor mission.ShefacedunimaginableuglyoppositionAfro American voting, labor, education, civil and human and passage of the bipartisan Colorado legislationrights. He was criticized for a non-violence plan to end stems directly from her unwavering perseverance toracial segregation. Colorado was in the forefront in the make the Colorado King Holiday a reality.In 1983 shestruggle to establish a MLK Federal and State Holiday. succeeded and planned the early MLK celebrationsSee the Colorado MLK Commission website for for more supportedbyherhusbandandtheColoradoMLKdetails and 2024 schedule.Commission,nowchairedbyVernHowardwitha BOCNEWS.COM5'