Martin Luther King Jr. Day March held in Lewisburg Monday morning with 200 people marching from the Greenbrier County Courthouse to the Lewisburg United Methodist Church.
LEWISBURG, W.Va. — Braving the elements on a bitterly cold day, a smaller than usual band of marchers climbed the hill from the Greenbrier County Courthouse to the Lewisburg United Methodist Church on Monday in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Organizers of the annual Greenbrier Valley event took the day’s theme from one of the late civil rights leader’s oft-repeated messages, referencing “the beloved community” — a land free of discrimination and human travail.
Competitors in this year’s elementary school essay contest — which attracted more than 80 entries — were asked to put King’s sentiment into their own words, and a pair of fifth-graders from Greenbrier Episcopal School read their winning essays aloud to an appreciative audience of around 250 people in the church sanctuary Monday afternoon.
“Martin Luther King opened our eyes and made people think,” Maxine Costa read from her first-place essay. “Love is the ultimate ability, and hate is caused by confusion. There’s a choice to love or to hate…