Native Son Rodney L. Johnson to Keynote MLK Prayer Breakfast
The MLK Prayer Breakfast takes place on Saturday, January 16.
The event commemorates the late Clara Jeter with the theme, “A Call to Service.”
For the first time in decades, the keynote speaker at Asheville’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Breakfast will be an Asheville native son.
Many locals remember Rodney L. Johnson as a young basketball star at (then) Lee Edwards High School, when Ted Carter was head basketball coach. After graduation, Rodney attended Mars Hill College (now University), and with his degree in hand he returned to Asheville where he taught Physical Education at Hill Street Middle School for four years.
During the last two of those years he also served as William “Bill” Bennett’s Assistant Basketball Coach, at what had by then become Asheville High School. He left to become Head Basketball Coach at Hoke County High School in Raeford, NC, for a year, then returned to Asheville High School as Head Coach for the next five years.
Rodney’s talent in basketball balanced his interest in institutional leadership, and he became an agent of change throughout his career. He became Assistant Coach at UNC Asheville under Jerry Green, and while there he established the Office of Minority Affairs, an office he created and for which he was the first director.
He left UNC Asheville to become Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach under John Kuester at Boston University, and in 1984, he and Kuester together joined the staff at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Rodney began his career at George Washington University as the Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach of the Colonials; after five years he left coaching to become Special Assistant to Robert A. Chernak, Vice President for Student and Academic Services. There he organized the Office of Parent Services (OPS), which over the next 18 years became the university’s main resource for communicating with families of undergraduate students.
Under his guidance, OPS initiated the Parents’ Association, Parents’ Association Advisory Council, The Parents’ Listserv, and the OPS web site. The Office of Parent Services also gained a large presence during Spring Visits, Colonial Inauguration, and Colonials Weekend (parents’ weekend), as well as other university events.
Johnson’s work at George Washington University, as elsewhere, involved reaching out to people to help them learn, communicate, share wisdom and insight both up and down the hierarchy. And his personality and character enabled him to make a difference in thousands of lives of students, parents, and other family members, as well as fellow faculty and administrators, at each institution he served.
In 1987 Johnson was inducted into the Mars Hill University Athletic Hall of Fame. When, in 2013, he was presented with a Distinguished Alumnus award from his alma mater, it was natural that the Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Asheville and Buncombe County would want to invite him to participate in the annual Prayer Breakfast, now celebrating its 35th year.
While events conspired to keep him from speaking at the January, 2015 breakfast, the MLK Association was eager to extend an invitation to Johnson to join them for the milestone event coming up on Januray 16 at the Crowne Plaza Resort.
“And it’s fitting,” says founder Oralene Simmons, “that the 35th annual breakfast should be addressed by a native son for the first time since its earliest years.”
Having grown from a small group of 75 people who attended the first Prayer Breakfast at Montford Community Center in 1982 – five years before the establishment of the national Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday – the breakfast now attracts more than 1,000 attendees from throughout western North Carolina.
In the keynote role, Rodney Johnson joins such speakers as U.S. Representatives Shirley Chisolm and Walter Fauntroy, Chair of the U. S. Human Rights Commission Dr. Mary Frances Berry, civil rights leaders Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr., Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, journalists and commentators Donna Brazile, Leonard Pitts, Jr., and Juan Williams, and other renowned figures.
As part of its celebration of Dr. King’s life and work, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Association recognizes community leaders and youth leaders who embody the spirit of Dr. King. Two students, Michael Davis and Ulisse Rotolo, were awarded scholarships to UNC Asheville for the 2016-17 academic year, and they will be recognized at the Prayer Breakfast on Saturday, January 16.
The entire 2016 MLK celebration weekend will be dedicated to the late Clara Jeter, who in her decades of service to Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry, the MLK Association, and other organizations, exemplified Dr. King’s exhortation to serve the community.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday
Beginning at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, January 18, 2016, the official federal Martin Luther King holiday, the MLK Association of Asheville and Buncombe County will offer a program at St. James AME Church (MLK Boulevard and Hildebrand Street), to which participants are asked to bring nonperishable food items for distribution to Manna Food Bank. Attendees will then march to City-County Plaza for a public rally featuring U.S. Olympic Silver Medalist Manteo Mitchell as speaker and acclaimed musicians WestSound.
At 6 p.m. on Monday, January 18, the MLK Association will hold its annual Candlelight Service at Nazareth First Baptist Church, 146 Pine Street at Martin Luther King Boulevard. There the 2016 MLK Award honorees will be recognized and the St. John Baptist Church Choir will perform. Both January 18 events are free and open to the public.
The 2016 Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Breakfast takes place Saturday, January 16. For more information, visit the website at www.mlkasheville.org or call (828) 281-1624. If available, tickets for the breakfast can be purchased at the door for $30 ($15 for youth, aged 12 and under).
