KENNEBUNK — The town’s 21st annual celebration in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will take place Monday, Jan. 15, at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Kennebunk.

The keynote speaker at the 10 a.m. event is Dr. Marcus Bruce, professor of religious studies at Bates College. His talk, “So Great a Cloud of Witnesses,” focuses on the Legacy of the Montgomery Bus Boycott— he speaks from experience since he spent part of his youth in Montgomery, Alabama.

The suggested donation is $15 per adult, free for students. No registration is necessary.

Bruce has written and published his research on African Americans, their religion, and their culture. His work, “Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Spiritual Biography,” is included in the permanent collection of the U.S. White House. His passion is discovering and writing about the history of Americans found in the archives of France. He is currently writing a book on African Americans in Paris.

People attending the MLK Celebration will be greeted with guitar music by Elsa Liberatore of Kennebunk High School. Ambrose Maynes and Elliot Barron, also from KHS, will begin the program with some jazz tunes by Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, and John Lewis. The celebration will continue with a reception, sponsored by Hannaford Super Store, in the Parish Hall.

The event is sponsored by the Social Justice Network of First Parish and the community group Many Towns, One Circle. The mission of MTOC is to identify racial bias, challenge racial injustice, and work together to build a more inclusive community. The event will benefit the Alpha Legal Foundation, whose mission is to increase the number of underrepresented attorneys in Maine’s top positions of legal leadership and scholarship.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kennebunk’s 21st annual MLK celebration: What you need to know