Due to the State of the State address Wednesday, the annual Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative celebration was moved to a new date.
The Martin Luther King Jr. event, hosted by the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus, will be Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. on the first floor Rotunda of the Capitol.
The group scheduled the event for Wednesday about a year ago and had the speakers, performers and transportation set, but after Gov. Eric Greitens scheduled his State of the State address for the same evening later in the year, the caucus had to scramble to find a new speaker and performance group.
Dr. Ken McDonald - University of Missouri System's vice chancellor and chief diversity officer for inclusion, diversity and equity - will be Tuesday's guest speaker. Before working with the UM System, he was the vice president and associate provost for diversity and inclusion at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.
The Legend Singers Choral Ensemble from St. Louis will perform at the commemorative event. Several legislatures will also help with the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, which began more than 20 years ago by Sen. Mary Groves Bland, of Kansas City.
State Rep. Alan Green, Missouri Legislative Black Caucus chair, said the main purpose of the event is to educate and inspire those in attendance. As racial tensions continue in the United States, he said it's important to be more inclusive.
"We - not just the United States but the entire world - need to continue to move and progress when we're talking about racial relations because there's so much work that we need to do," he said. "We need to stop thinking about color so much because it's not about color - it's about relationships and building those relationships."
Green said Martin Luther King Jr. was a "legend in those areas" and he wants to remind the state of that legacy. He encouraged people to come to the event and get new ideas on how to improve race relations.
"We need to come together because it's not a Republican or Democrat thing," he said. "It's people coming together and working together and seeing how we can move the state of Missouri forward."