HughE Dillon is a Philadelphia-based photographer and creator of the PhillyChitChat blog. Follow him on Twitter @HughE_Dillon and on Instagram @PhillyChitChat.
The 2021 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Bell Ringing Ceremony was virtually hosted by Dr. William Tucker, chair of the Martin Luther King Jr. Association for Nonviolence Inc., and widower of the ceremony’s founder, C. Delores Tucker, a civil rights activist who became Pennsylvania’s secretary of state.
This years honoree bell ringer was Dr. Ala Stanford, Black Doctors Covid-19 Consortium. The ceremony began with an invocation by Rev. Dr. Lorina Marshall Blake, president of the Independence Blue Cross Foundation. Also in attendance was Gregory E. Deavens, President and Chief Executive Officer of Independence Health Group.
The event was broadcasted live on Facebook from the Liberty Bell Pavilion, commencing at 11:15 a.m. and ending at noon with the symbolic ringing of the Liberty Bell, which officially inaugurates the King Holiday.
