Columbia’s King Day at the Dome will go virtual for the first time due to COVID-19
Columbia’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Day event hosted by the South Carolina NAACP will not be held in person this year.
Instead, King Day at the Dome will be going virtual on Jan. 18, SC NAACP President Brenda Murphy said.
The event is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Invitations to the virtual event will go out no late than Friday, Murphy said.
This year marks the first time since the event’s inception in 2000 that it will not be held in person. Typically, attendees participate in a march through downtown Columbia and end with a rally at the State House.
This year’s event will focus on the theme of “Where do we go from here?” — a fitting topic as the Trump administration leaves office and Democrats assume more control on the national level, Murphy said. Specifically, event officials hope to hold conversations on education, criminal justice, environmental justice and health.
“Hopefully, with new leadership, we will be able to move forward with fewer challenges,” Murphy said.
U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Columbia Democrat, will speak at the event, Murphy said, adding other speakers are still being confirmed.
King Day at the Dome started in 2000 as a march against the flying of the Confederate flag over the State House dome. After the flag came down from the dome, the event morphed to champion other social justice causes, including education funding, racial equality, voter ID laws and immigration reform.
Since, the event has become a political beacon to those seeking office not only in South Carolina, but across the country. Several presidential candidates have attended the event and have gotten the opportunity to speak at it in past years, including former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President-Elect Joe Biden.
This story was originally published January 6, 2021 at 12:37 PM.
