Award-winning journalist and author Michele Norris will deliver the keynote speech at the 35th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast in Minneapolis on Jan. 20, 2025. It will start at 7:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
Minnesota’s Grammy-winning Sounds of Blackness will provide the musical entertainment and Threads Dance Project will deliver a special performance. A choral reading will be done by VocalEssence Singers of this Age.
The annual event by General Mills and the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is one of the largest in the nation held to honor the legacy of the late civil rights leader. Funds raised at the breakfast go towards funding college scholarships for Twin Cities students through the United Negro College Fund.
“This event helps provide life-changing support for students to help them get to and through college and go after their dreams,” said Dr. Michael L. Lomax, president and CEO of UNCF in a written statement.
Most students that receive scholarships through UNCF attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) but are not required to. Enrollments at HBCUs have continued to climb since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and Vice President Kamala Harris coming to office. VP Harris attended Howard University, an HBCU. Since taking office, the Biden-Harris Administration says it has invested $16 billion in HBCUs from Fiscal Year 2024.
The late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also attended Morehouse College, one of the oldest HBCUs.
40% of Black engineers in America and 80% of Black judges in America, as well as 50% of lawyers have been educated at HBCUs, according to the White House.
Norris, a Minnesota native, will speak on race, culture and communication in America under the breakfast’s 2025 theme of “One People.” University of Minnesota professor and researcher, Dr. Rachel Hardeman, one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2024, will moderate the discussion.
The Minnesota native was the first Black female host at NPR and for almost ten years hosted its flagship news program “All Things Considered.” She stepped down from the role when her husband Mr. Broderick Johnson joined Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2011. Following President Obama’s reelection in 2012, Obama appointed him White House Cabinet Secretary.
Norris is the founding director of The Race Card Project which won a 2014 Peabody Award “for encouraging public discussion about diversity in ways that cut through obvious differences to present unique and individual lived experiences.”
She joined the Washington Post as a high profile columnist in 2019 and resigned in protest in October after the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, which had been written and ready to be published, was blocked by the paper’s owner Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The paper’s editor-at-large Robert Kagan also resigned.
Writing on X in a post viewed over 6 million times, Norris said: “The Washington Post’s decision to withhold an endorsement that had been written & approved in an election where core democratic principles are at stake was a terrible mistake & an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is observed annually on the third Monday in January to mark the Jan. 15 birthday of King who was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tenn. It has been observed as a federal holiday since January 20, 1986 – three years after President Ronald Reagan signed the bill on November 2, 1983 making it a holiday.
Tickets for the 2025 MLK Breakfast in Minneapolis on Jan. 20 can be purchased at MLKBreakfast.com.
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About Tom Gitaa Gitaa, Editor-in-Chief
Born and raised in Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa, Tom is the Founder, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Mshale which has been reporting on the news and culture of African immigrants in the United States since 1995. He has a BA in Business from Metro State University and a Public Leadership Credential from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He was the original host of Talking Drum, the signature current affairs show on the African Broadcasting Network (ABN-America), which was available nationwide in the United States via the Dish Network satellite service. On the show, he interviewed Nobel laureates such as 2004 Nobel Peace prize winner, Professor Wangari Maathai, the first woman from Africa to win the peace prize and heads of states. Tom has served and chaired various boards including Global Minnesota (formerly Minnesota International Center), the sixth largest World Affairs Council in the United States. He has previously served as the first Black President of the Board of Directors at Books for Africa. He also serves on the boards of New Vision Foundation and the Minnesota Multicultural Media Consortium. He has previously served two terms on the board of the United Nations Association. An avid runner, he retired from running full marathons after turning 50 and now only focuses on training for half marathons.
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