Cedar Rapids to host MLK NOW event to address persistent problems for Black Iowans

CEDAR RAPIDS — With 26 panelists, six entertainers and the goal of finding solutions to some persistent problems facing Black Iowans, the MLK NOW 2024 conference Jan. 13 in Cedar Rapids is expected to draw more than 1,000 people from across the state.

This will be more than an inspirational talk about Martin Luther King Jr., the pioneering Civil Rights leader assassinated in 1968, planners said.

“We bring the changemakers together, the policymakers, the businesses to talk about these important issues,” said Michelle Gibson Webb, chief events coordinator for BOB Rewards Club, a Minneapolis-based not-for-profit membership group for Black-owned businesses. “We need to drill on the solutions and find out what works.”

Panel discussions at MLK Now 2024, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building, will include:

Sponsorships will pay for the event, which is free and includes bus transportation from Davenport, Dubuque, Des Moines, Iowa City and Waterloo.

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Gibson Webb has helped plan MLK NOW events in Minneapolis and St. Paul, but she wanted to hold the 2024 event in Iowa because Iowa ranks in the top 5 worst states for Black people, based on rates of Black homeownership, graduation, social mobility, sustainable employment and incarceration, she said.

She teamed up with Anthony Arrington, managing partner of Top Rank, a professional and executive search and training/consulting firm based in Cedar Rapids.

“My initial thought was ‘I'm not sure we're ready for that’,” Arrington said of the conference. But “I knew we needed it. We absolutely need to be having these authentic conversations.”

It wasn’t hard to recruit panelists, entertainers and moderators, he said. Just a few of the panelists include Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart, Rev. Belinda Creighton-Smith, a University of Northern Iowa diversity leader; Des Moines NAACP President Kameron Middlebrooks, and Monica Slaughter, assistant Linn County Attorney.

“When I called people and explained what we were doing and why their voices were important, I got no hesitation,” Arrington said.

The event also will feature entertainment, a mini carnival and DIY activities for kids, vendor displays, refreshments, giveaways and the BOB Annual Awards ceremony.

Arrington sees MLK NOW as an opportunity to call attention to disparities between Black Iowans and others in terms of job opportunities, homeownership and incarceration.

Black people make up 4 percent of Iowa’s population, but 25 percent of those behind bars — making it one of the worst states in the nation for racial disparities in incarceration, according to a new analysis from the Prison Policy Initiative.

Midwest states have some of the lowest rates of Black homeownership in the country, CNN reported earlier this year.

Arrington, who will be part of the panel discussion on developing businesses and sustainable employment for Black Iowans, said he expects to not just talk about the problems, but brainstorm ways to fix them.

That’s the best way to honor King, he said.

“Dr. King would not be spending his day singing ‘Kum ba yah.’ He'd spend his day with his boots on working.”

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