Ways for Wichitans to honor Martin Luther King Jr. and the upcoming holiday
Wichitans can remember the life and legacy of civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in more than a handful of ways this month and on the Jan. 19 holiday — from attending museum events to being of service to others to honoring local individuals, including a participant of the 1958 Wichita Dockum Drugs store sit-in.
Three of the events are marking a return this year: a community parade, a luncheon hosted by the Wichita chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity that King belonged to, and a half-day of volunteering to help two families secure housing.
The Kansas African American Museum is also honoring King through commemorative Pin the Dream buttons. Available for $5, the button has an image of King linking arms with other civil rights activists during the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Individuals who purchase and wear the button will receive free admission to TKAAM from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 24. The buttons can be purchased online at tkaamuseum.org/shop, in person at 601 N. Water or by phone at 316-262-7651.
Here are other activities happening in the Wichita area.
Friday, Jan. 16
It is just a matter of good timing that the Wichita Art Museum is hosting Baltimore-based artist Stephen Towns, whose works comprise the “Safer Waters: Picturing Black Recreation at Midcentury” exhibition currently on display, for two free events on the weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, according to WAM officials. The subject of Towns’ paintings and quilts is Paradise Park, a Florida lake resort for Black vacationers during segregation. King played a significant role in helping end segregation in the U.S.
Towns, whose vibrant quilts and paintings center on African American history, will be the featured speaker for the free WAM Nights program at 6 p.m. on Friday and a special guest for story time at noon and 1 p.m. during WAM’s Family ArtVenture program on Saturday. Called A Sewful Celebration with Stephen Towns, Family ArtVenture happens from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
If you visit WAM, check out Towns’s quilt “Chain Gang,” which is part of WAM’s permanent collection and on display in the “(im)permanent” exhibition. When WAM acquired the piece in 2024, Towns posted a reminder on Instagram that King had been sentenced to a chain gang in 1960 as a result of a misdemeanor traffic offense. King was ticketed when he gave writer Lillian Smith, a white woman, a ride to the hospital where she was receiving cancer treatments, According to historical accounts, Smith, who’d just had dinner with King and his wife, Coretta, at their Georgia home, insisted they’d been pulled over because of their race, which was not an uncustomary action at the time. King was released from jail after interventions by John F. Kennedy, the Democratic presidential candidate at the time, and his brother and eventual attorney general, Robert Kennedy.
The events and exhibitions are free. More info: 416-268-4921, wam.org
Saturday, Jan. 17
After a short hiatus, a community MLK Jr. parade, organized by Christian Faith Centre’s pastor Bishop Wade Moore Jr., is back but in a new location. Previously held near downtown, this year’s activities will start with a pancake breakfast from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at Christian Faith Centre, 3310 E. Pawnee. Tickets are $5, and free for students through 12th grade with a student ID.
Parade participants will start lining up at 9:45 a.m.; floats, horses, trucks, motorcycles, marchers and more are welcome, Moore said. The parade will start at 10 a.m. for a short half-mile route that will go east on Pawnee from the Christian Faith Centre, located near Hillside, to George Washington Boulevard and back. In case of inclement weather, the community-gathering activity will move indoors.
“The community has been pressing us and wanting this so we’re back … to show unity in the community” and honor Martin Luther King Jr., Moore said. To participate in the parade, just show up or call Moore at 316-304-5479.
The Eta Beta Lambda Wichita chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity is hosting an awards luncheon from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Rhatigan Student Center’s Beggs Ballroom at Wichita State University. In 1952, while a graduate student at Boston University, King joined Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate fraternity established for Black men in 1906.
Held intermittently for the past several years, this event celebrates the words and lasting principles of King and recognizes those who have made significant contributions to uplifting the community, said Christopher Burrell, Eta Beta Lambda vice president.
Larry Randle Jr., vice president of manufacturing operations with Textron Systems in New Orleans, will be the keynote speaker. Randle, a native Wichitan, has held several positions within Textron at its Wichita, Arizona and Indiana locations before he started leading Textron’s shipbuilding operations in New Orleans.
During the luncheon, three local individuals will be recognized with awards: Kevin Harrison, senior program manager of Cure Violence ICT; Connie Franklin, who served more than 25 years as a unit director for the Boys and Girls Clubs of South Central Kansas; and Kasi Ross II, co-owner of Haven, a new Old Town restaurant and lounge.
Tickets are $50 but are selling fast, Burrell said. To purchase, email ictalphas@gmail.com or call 316-708-6229. For more info: facebook.com/ICTALPHAS
Monday, Jan. 19
Four individuals and a business will be honored during the 10th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Heroes and Sheroes Scholarship Awards and Breakfast sponsored by the community chorale group ARISE that starts at 7:30 a.m. on Monday at the Beggs Ballroom at WSU.
ARISE is a musical and educational group whose acronym stands for African Americans Renewing Interest in Spirituals Ensemble. Founder Jo Brown, who died Dec. 31 at age 96 and was also the first Black woman to be elected to the USD 259 Board of Education, will be recognized during the event.
The spirituals sung by ARISE, which has performed concerts from Peabody, Kansas, to Paris, France, are among the best vehicles for helping people seek hope during despair, said Gerald Norwood, ARISE president.
During the breakfast, the following will be recognized: retired university professor Galyn Vesey, who in 1958 was among a group of Black Wichita teens who staged American’s first drugstore sit-in to protest whites-only dine-in service; retired USD 259 teacher Telana Sexton; Eric Sexton, a government affairs consultant and principal with PAR Strategies; and Union Pacific Railroad. Bishop Mark Gilkey, a longtime Wichita pastor and president of the Greater Wichita Ministerial League at the time of his death in August 2025, will be recognized posthumously.
Tickets are $40, with limited seats still available, Norwood said. To purchase, call 316-258-2749.
Wichita Habitat for Humanity’s Day of Service build is returning this year, where the exterior and interior walls of two homes are framed for local families during a morning event at Century II.
Participants must register by Jan. 18 for the event, but registration may close early if all spots are filled, according to Quang Nguyen, the marketing and communications manager for Wichita’s Habitat for Humanity. The Day of Service build runs from 8 to 11 a.m. and is open to volunteers 10 and older. To sign up, go to volunteerkansas.org/mlk-day-service.
“We are excited by the strong community response to this returning tradition,” Nguyen wrote in an email response.
The Day of Service build started in 2017 to recognize King’s legacy of being of service and creating community. It was canceled in 2021 and 2022 because of COVID, and in 2025 when the organization focused on a revitalization project, called Rock the Block Piatt, where 16 homes were rehabbed in northeast Wichita.
The framed walls of this year’s two homes — a four-bedroom, two-bath house and a three-bedroom, one-bath house — will be erected at sites near Ninth and Ash, starting Jan. 20, Nguyen said. Volunteers are also needed for that; sign up at wichitahabitat.org/volunteer or directly on Wichita Habitat’s VolunteerHub at wichitahabitat.volunteerhub.com.
For more than 40 years, the Greater Wichita Ministerial League has hosted a Martin Luther King Jr. Day worship celebration. The event, held at the WSU Hughes Metropolitan Complex at 5015 E. 29th St. North, begins at noon. This year’s keynote speaker is Bishop Herman Hicks, a former Air Force veteran and senior pastor of the Greater Pentecostal Church of Christ in Wichita. Shane Carter, TKAAM’s new director, is the emcee of the event, which includes praise dance and musical performances.