Martin Luther King’s global message impacts all

Courtesy Photo | Defense Contract Management Agency team members will soon celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day around the world. Debra Simmon, DCMA’s alternative dispute resolution manager, said the agency recently trained team members to serve as special emphasis coordinators in the field with a hope of expanding and enhancing culturally significant events throughout the agency.  

FORT LEE, VA, UNITED STATES

01.11.2016

Story by Thomas Perry 

Defense Contract Management Agency

FORT LEE, Va. - In a fitting salute to the man himself, Defense Contract Management Agency team members will soon celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day around the world. The agency’s culturally diverse environments stretch across borders from Canada to Korea — just as King’s message of equal opportunity and equality for all still resonates internationally 48 years after his assassination.

“In sermons and speeches, Dr. King’s voice rang out with a call for us to work toward a better tomorrow,” said President Barack Obama, in his 2015 proclamation commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “As we honor his legacy, Americans across the country will join one another for a day of service, picking up the baton handed to us by past generations and carrying forward their efforts. As one people, we will show when ordinary citizens come together to participate in the democracy we love, justice will not be denied.”

Hoping to expand and enhance culturally significant events, Debra Simmon, the agency’s alternative dispute resolution manager, said DCMA recently trained team members to serve as special emphasis coordinators in the field. “The Equal Employment Opportunity office highly encourages these types of events be scheduled and conducted across the agency.”

Simmon, who is organizing the headquarters’ 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. event, highlighted King’s impact on the federal employment system.

“Following President John Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Dr. King worked closely with newly inaugurated President Lyndon Johnson and Congress, passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Simmon said. “As the nation’s premier civil rights legislation, Dr. King’s legacy includes his leadership in setting the conditions whereby all federal workers — including DCMA employees — are protected against discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.”

The agency’s headquarters celebration is set for Thursday, Jan. 14, from 1-2 p.m. in the multi-purpose conference rooms. The event, whose theme is “A Day On, Not A Day Off,” will be highlighted by guest speaker George Hunt — a civil rights activist and artist.

According to Simmon, Hunt and a fellow teacher were driving in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968 when they heard the news that King had been shot and taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital emergency room. Arriving at the hospital, they were mistaken by security to be part of King’s entourage and were ushered into his hospital room. Hunt was in the room when King was pronounced dead. In April 1968, Hunt was part of the group of men who moved King’s casket from the R.S. Lewis & Son’s hearse onto a plane that had been chartered by Robert Kennedy for transport to Atlanta.

• Date Taken: 01.11.2016
• Date Posted: 01.12.2016 08:36
• Story ID: 186095
• Location: FORT LEE, VA, US