Author: Donna Ardizzoni

GLOUCESTER MEETINGHOUSE, MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr. BIRTHDAY EVENT 2025

The Gloucester Meetinghouse Foundation proudly presents its ninth annual
Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday event. It will be held on Monday, January 20th
at 2:00pm in the Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church, located at the corner
of Church and Middle Streets (GPS 50 Middle Street). An elevator is available
from the side door at 10 Church Street. No charge for admission but freewill
donations are gratefully received. For more information please visit:
www.gloucestermeetinghouse.org

This year’s program will honor Dr. King by featuring the work being done by two
local groups to reckon with history. Afterward, there will be a discussion about
how vernacular history gets written, “how the word is passed.” The program
will open with a recording of Martin Luther King, Jr. reading segments of
“Letters from Birmingham Jail.”

Joe Rukeyser from the Cape Ann Slavery and Abolition Project will present
recent research on abolition. Melissa Dimond of Wellspring House will follow
with that organization’s work on the Freeman Family, the prominent Black
family who called the Wellspring House home for over 100 years. Then Michea
McCaffrey, co-chair of the Gloucester Racial Justice Team, and Dick Prouty,
founder of TownGreen and board member of the Gloucester Meetinghouse
Foundation, will lead a discussion on critical points made by author Clint Smith
in his book How the Word is Passed. (It is not necessary to have read the book.)
The Paul Revere Bell in the Meetinghouse tower will be rung at the end as
people disperse onto the newly restored green.