Commission on Human Rights
State Human Rights Commission honors an American Hero with students in ML King Motorcade and remembers 50 years of service

On Monday, Jan. 18, Louisville students will join the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights in participating in the Martin Luther King Jr. Motorcade in Louisville. 

The young people will be recognized as Kentucky Commission on Human Rights Honorary Ambassadors of Good Will. Immediately following the motorcade, they will participate in the memorial service to honor the late American civil rights champion at Hill Street Missionary Baptist Church, 2203 Dixie Highway, in Louisville. There, the students will receive their ambassador certificates. 

The students’ participation in the Martin Luther King memorial will help the commission commemorate its 50 years of service to Kentucky in 2010. Created by Gov. Bert Combs in 1960, the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights became the first of its kind south of the Mason-Dixon Line. In 1966, Kentucky became the first southern state to pass its own civil rights act to protect its people from discrimination. The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights is the state agency charged with enforcing the Kentucky Civil Rights Act and federal civil rights laws.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that Kentucky had one of the strongest civil rights laws in America. He traveled to Frankfort, Ky., in 1964, and marched with thousands of people to the state capitol to demand a civil rights law to end legal discrimination, an atrocity that had plagued Kentucky from its beginning.

Throughout 2010, the commission will carry out anniversary activities in order to raise awareness of civil rights, the rights to equal opportunity of every Kentuckian. 

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