Murray graduate – Freedom Rider speaks

Historic City News readers are invited to attend the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Service to be held on Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 11:30 AM at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church, 2703 Forman Circle, Hill Top Community in Middleburg.

Gwendolyn Duncan informed our event reporters that the guest speaker will be Henry “Hank” Thomas, who is a former resident of St. Augustine and one of the original “Freedom Riders” of the 1960’s.

Thomas, who graduated from Murray High School, is cited in many books as a civil rights activist who traveled through the South on Greyhound buses in 1961, protesting segregated facilities at bus stations along the way. Today, Thomas is a millionaire businessman in Atlanta, where he owns several fast food franchises.

Special Guest will be Roslyn Burrough of Jacksonville, FL.

Lunch and Entertainment following the service will be at the “Hill Top Heritage Academy Property”, 2733 Forman Cirlce in Middleburg as well.

“Please contact Maude Burroughs at (904) 282-4168 for more information,” Duncan told Historic City News. “Please bring the children.”

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Photo credits: © 2011 Historic City News contributed photograph by Gwendolyn Duncan