Bishop State holds annual "Keeping the Dream Alive" event

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Bishop State Community College honored the memory and the teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr. with a tribute Thursday "Keeping the Dream Alive."

It’s been 87 years and two days since the birth of the civil rights leader, and his name was praised to a packed Yvonne Kennedy Auditorium.

 There, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone his words mean more to than DeWitt Ford.

 "The adversity that he had to face in the beginning of his whole endeavor with trying to make that peace amongst every single race, and looking at the character and integrity of a person; it was tremendous for me," Ford said.

Ford is a business administration major who wants to become one of the only African American Chief Executive Officers of a Fortune 500 company. He's also MR. Bishop State, a student leader just under the SGA president.

Ford is only a freshman, so, just as MLK Jr. did, Ford is starting early.

He said he won't go into the clergy like King; politics are more his forte'.  He said he would like to run for mayor, a dream Ford said would not be possible without the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The walk that he did and the way that he did it and he stressed peace," Ford said.  "It's amazing and truly a blessing in disguise."

 Martin Luther King Jr's words are taken as spiritually- and personally- as the gospel he once taught. He admonished us all to have a dream.

 And as selflessly as King lived, Ford wishes to leave his institution better than he found it.

 "We want to take Bishop State to the next level and take it from the past into the next year," Ford said.

 "Keeping the Dream Alive" comes just four days before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2013, January 21.