Renner to focus on MLK during next mayor’s open house

Posted on March 28, 2018

By Greg Halbleib

BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner is adding some history to his next mayor’s open house.

Renner said he will focus on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior during next Friday’s regular open house. That’s 50 years and two days after King was shot to death in Memphis, accelerating an important period of American history.

“The civil rights movement was a critical event in America becoming a more perfect union,” Renner told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin. “Unfortunately, Dr. King did not live to see the fact that year when he was assassinated, 1968 in the following presidential election, was the first time in American history that the majority of non-whites ever voted, 103 years after the Civil War.”

Renner plans to show a film about the assassination and host a brief discussion. The mayor said he will still have time for general city questions.

The open house will be held in the “fishbowl” room of Bloomington City Hall next Friday afternoon at 4:30.

Greg Halbleib can be reached at [email protected].

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