2020 Freedom Breakfast honors Martin Luther King Jr.

Lincoln Public Schools staff and administrators joined hundreds of fellow community members on Friday morning at the annual Freedom Breakfast honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., held at the Embassy Suites Hotel. Every year, LPS joins Southeast Community College, the University of Nebraska, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a committee of community members to coordinate the event.

This year’s keynote speaker, T.J. McDowell, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Lincoln High School alum, spoke to the crowd about overcoming his own strong prejudice while attending college.

McDowell shared, “We can miss out on great relationships in our life because we have a fear about what we don’t know.” 

LPS Superintendent Steve Joel also gave remarks during the breakfast. He spoke about the Lincoln Board of Education’s work toward defining equity and what student success looks like in our schools. Joel described the inspirational stories of three LPS students and their success.

Joel also shared a King quote: “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”

During the breakfast, eight recent LPS graduates were introduced as 2019 MLK Scholarship Award winners: Amro Elimam, Lincoln Northeast High School; Jillian Fougeron, Lincoln Southwest High School; Kate Gonzalez-Mireles, Lincoln North Star High School; Katherine Nepper, a graduate of Lincoln East High School; and Sandra Montoya-Martinez, Aye Par, Monica Pester and Zantiago Zollicoffer, from Lincoln High.


Published: January 17, 2020, Updated: January 17, 2020

T.J. McDowell, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Lincoln High School alum