Rev. Charles Lee-Johnson, Ph.D., pastor, Corona Community Church, will deliver the keynote speech at Moreno Valley College’s Fifth Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Breakfast on Friday, January 12, 7:30 am. The College will also be honoring Woodie Rucker-Hughes.
The breakfast will be held at the Moreno Valley Recreation Center, 14075 Frederick St., Moreno Valley, CA 92553. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased by contacting the College’s Admissions & Records office at (951) 571-6101. Monies from the breakfast fund scholarships. Each year, high school students from Moreno Valley and Val Verde unified school districts compete in an essay competition for a chance to win $500 scholarships. And students from the College compete in a speech competition.
This year, students were prompted to research and write on Dr. King’s Ware Lecture where he referred to the well-known Washington Irving’s story, Rip Van Winkle, in which Rip, the character, had not only slept for 20 years but had also slept through the American Revolution. Entitled Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution, students wrote up to 1,500 words identifying a social issue that Dr. King addressed as part of the revolution then and examined how that issue still exists today. Winners will be announced at the breakfast.
Rucker-Hughes, a long-time educator and activist, will be the first recipient of the College’s Community Legacy Award.
“I grew up during the civil rights movement during the 1960s and I’ve seen so many things have changed but yet so many things remain the same,” she told the Riverside Press Enterprise in a story last April prior to be honoring by the NAACP. “Some of the battles that we fought during the ’60s…we’re fighting those battles now.”
Rev. Lee-Johnson knows those battles well.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Rev. Lee-Johnson graduated from Dorsey High School, earned a bachelor of arts degree in Sociology from Morehouse College and a master’s in Social Welfare from UCLA. In 1997, he received his license to preach in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He is committed to the positive development of young people, families and communities around the world. Rev. Lee-Johnson has created a curriculum for the Ten Step Rites of Passage program, which consists of more than 500 pages of interactive, life-changing workshops for youth and families at risk. The Ten Step Rites of Passage curriculum has been recognized by professionals nationally and internationally as the most comprehensive curriculum targeting at-risk youth and families. Additionally, Rev. Lee-Johnson has co-authored a curriculum for Healthy African American Couples, and a curriculum for inmates and parolees called On Your Mark/Keeping the Faith.
In addition to serving as the pastor of Corona Community Church, Rev. Lee-Johnson teaches at California Baptist University as the field director of the Social Work program.