GIRARD Longtime area pastor to speak at MLK event

The speaker has been pastor of the Youngstown church for four decades.
GIRARD -- The Rev. Dr. Morris W. Lee, pastor of Third Baptist Church, Youngstown, will speak at a tribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at 1 p.m. Saturday at Mahoning Country Club, 710 E. Liberty St.
The event is sponsored by the Youngstown chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
The Rev. Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.
Scholarships: The APRI chapter will award three scholarships to students from the Youngstown city schools in memory of James "Monk" Tillman, a late community activist and longtime chapter member.
The Rev. Dr. Lee has participated in many local and state community and ecclesiastical activities. He has been pastor of Third Baptist, on Park Hill Drive on the city's South Side, since September 1960.
Dr. Lee, born in Virginia, earned his bachelor's degree in history from Virginia Union University, Richmond, Va., and later completed advanced studies in divinity and religion.
He is a past board member and one of the founders of the Youngstown Area Urban League, and has long been affiliated with the Youngstown chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He has taught theology classes in Youngstown and also taught at Youngstown State University's Black Studies Department.
Institute: The institute is named after Randolph, a black labor activist who founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, which marked the beginning of the role of blacks in the U.S. labor movement.
He also was director of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963, during which Dr. King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
For ticket information, call Odessa Clinkscale at (330) 743-3074, William Ash at (330) 743-6409, or Arlette Gatewood at (330) 743-9005.