As part of next week’s annual US celebrations to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a pioneering British organisation has organised a historic event to take place in Central London on 24th January 2024.
Nubian Jak Community Trust, the world’s largest diverse plaque and sculpture scheme, has teamed up with Camden Council and Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, Shaftsbury Avenue, in London, to install a Blue Plaque on the building where Dr. King gave his first ever sermon on British soil. The church is a listed property and permission for the Nubian Jak blue plaque is believed to be the first ever approved for an ecclesiastical building in the UK.
In October 1961, 2 weeks after Dr. King met with John F Kennedy urging him to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation, the reverend gave one of his most memorable and prophetic speeches. His sermon at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church covered themes on racial injustice, economic and social inequality, poverty, violence, and ended with a hope for world peace.
It could be argued that in the current climate with conflicts going on around the world today, there has never been a better time to remember and commemorate the legacy of Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, and the importance of his message from a British perspective in the 21st Century. The commemorative plaque will be the first public realm tribute in the capital for 2024.
