Swannanoa Valley Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Gathering walks in the footsteps of civil rights icon
Annual tradition to celebrate ‘Unity in the Community’ at Upper Anderson Auditorium
Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
February 7, 2024
Swannanoa Valley Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Corp. Board President Sheila Showers speaks at the 2023 SVMLK Prayer Gathering. The annual fundraiser celebrating the legacy of the civil rights leader will return for its 34th year, Feb. 10, at Upper Anderson Auditorium. Photo by Fred McCormick
An annual tradition honoring the legacy of a torchbearer of the civil rights movement will return for its 34th year, beginning at 9 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 10, when the Swannanoa Valley Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Gathering debuts in the historic Montreat Conference Center venue in which the Nobel Peace Prize winner spoke to thousands of people nearly six decades ago.
Keynote speaker and Swannanoa native Dr. Ernest Grant, interim vice dean of diversity, equity and inclusion at the Duke University School of Nursing, will bring a message of “Unity in the Community” to the Upper Anderson Auditorium.
Tickets for the gathering, which will featuring a performance by community choir featuring members of local churches, are $15 and available at svmlk.org or by check to P.O. Box 1613, Black Mountain, N.C. 28711.
Established in 1990 by the late Lib Harper and former longtime Black Mountain Mayor Carl Bartlett to honor the life and teachings of King, the event began as a prayer breakfast that was held in Ridgecrest throughout its first six years. The fundraiser, which is organized by the Swannanoa Valley Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Corp., supports scholarships for local graduates of Owen and Community High Schools.
The nonprofit organization has awarded hundreds of scholarships to Swannanoa Valley natives of all ethnicities throughout its 30-year history. In 2023, the SVMLK Memorial Corp. announced its Say Their Name Scholarship, which is designated to assist an African American senior seeking financial assistance for college. The scholarship is supported by an endowment fund created by an anonymous donor in honor of a Black teenager who was killed in Mississippi in 1959.
Dr. Ernest Grant will deliver the keynote address for the 34th Annual Swannanoa Valley Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Gathering, Feb. 10, in the Upper Anderson Auditorium. Photo courtesy of the SVMLK Memorial Corp.
Grant, who is delivering the SVMLK Prayer Gathering address for the first time this year, is the immediate past president of the American Nurses Association, which represents 4.3 million registered nurses. He is the first man to be elected to that office in the 127-year existence of the ANA. He is recognized by the Modern Healthcare Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in healthcare, and received the Nurse of the Year Award from President George W. Bush in 2002.
The 2024 SVMLK Prayer Gathering will mark the first time the event has been held at Anderson Auditorium, where King delivered a keynote address to a crowd of thousands during the Christian Action Conference, hosted by the Presbyterian Church. The Baptist minister’s appearance in Montreat was the second of two known visits King made to Western N.C. before his assassination in 1968.
In January of 1964, King and his associates held a two-day retreat in Black Mountain at the In-the-Oaks Estate.