The Catholic Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee African American Catholic Commission held its annual mass in honor of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan 16 at St Joseph’s Catholic Church.

During the Mass, the church payed homage to King, who helped further racial equality in the country. Bishop William A. Wack was the celebrant and homilist

According to History.com, King survived an assassination attempt in the fall of 1958 but continued to preach and practice nonviolence. In April of 1968, King traveled to Memphis to support sanitation workers that were on strike, and was assassinated on the balcony of his hotel when he was assassinated on the evening of April 4. He was 39.

King received the Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights work at 35, four years prior to his assassination. He was the youngest man to receive the award at the time and donated all of the prize money (which was more than $50,000) to further the civil rights movement. 

He is perhaps best known for his “I Have a Dream” speech, which he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and famously said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it: ‘Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design’ (CCC 1935).”