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CLEVELAND, Ohio-Jan. 19, 2026 is here, a national holiday in observance of the late iconic Civil Rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We pause to remember the struggles that Blacks in America continue to face as a whole on almost a daily basis, struggles across the continuum that remain in spite of some gains during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Had Dr King not been assassinated as he was in 1968 on a Tennessee hotel balcony, it would have been his 97th birthday on Jan 15.
“My father and Uncle Martin [King] were like twins, and they even dressed alike sometimes, and Uncle Martin died in his arms.” said Abernathy III, an evangelist and motivational speaker who grew up in Montgomery, AL. and served a decade in the Georgia State Legislature as an Atlanta state representative and then a state senator.
Abernathy III was among a host of famous Blacks who toured Cleveland during the weeks leading up to the Nov 6., 2012 presidential election to rally voters for the Barack Obama campaign in the then pivotal state of Ohio, Cleveland a Democratic stronghold and the largest city in the delegate-rich 11th congressional district, also heavily Democratic.
He spoke at a rally at Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church after appearing as a guest on ‘The Art McKoy University Show, ’ which airs weekly from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm on W.E.R.E. AM radio.
Other well known Blacks in Cleveland in support of Obama’s 2012 reelection bid were John Legend, who is native of Springfield Ohio, Stevie Wonder, Yolanda Adams, Congressional Black Caucus members, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who later became a U.S. senator and is now the vice president, actress Vivica Fox, and Valerie Jarrett, one of three senior advisers to Obama when he was president.
The first Black president of the United States of America and the country’s most popular Black Democrat, Obama completed his second term in the White House in 2016.
Abernathy Sr died in 1990.
His son, Abernathy III, once imprisoned for forgery and theft regarding his finances while in office as a state senator in Atlanta, died of cancer in 2016, just two days shy of his 57th birthday. He said that his imprisonment was government entrapment because he was so outspoken for Blacks and other disenfranchised people, and allegedly because he had a famous name.
The younger Abernathy believed that too often Blacks forget what other Blacks fought for and died for, including the right to vote.
“Some people have forgotten what we have fought for all these years,” said Abernathy III.
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editor@clevelandurbannews.com (Kathy)
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