As Christ Our Redeemer Church of Irvine prepares to host the 10th annual “Orange County King Week” that celebrates the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., senior minister Rev. Mark Whitlock dares invoke the name of our preeminent African American icon.
Barack Obama? Check that. Despite the shamelessly hawked Obama “collectible” coins and dinner plates, Whitlock has it right when he declares, “There would be no President Barack Obama if not for Rev. Dr. Martin L. King.” To drive that point home, several events fill the week at Christ Our Redeemer, but it’s northwest to Second Baptist Church of Santa Ana at 11 a.m. Monday, the actual national observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, for the Minister’s Conference Fellowship of Orange County’s Worship Celebration, which is billed as the largest event honoring King in Southern California.
Mon., Jan. 19, 11 a.m., 2009
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.