The annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast in Birmingham has a new location for its 38th year.

Birmingham-Southern College on Jan. 15 will host the event that draws hundreds of Birmingham area elected leaders, civil rights advocates, and citizens to honor the city’s civil rights legacy and the man who embodied it.

The selection of the private college is the first time the breakfast has been held outside of downtown Birmingham. It is also the first time that a college is the site for the gathering.

State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham is the featured speaker this year. She called the move to Birmingham-Southern a significant moment for the annual event.

“It’s huge,” she said. “It’s going to be one of those historic moments for the city of Birmingham.”

Birmingham-Southern is located just blocks away from the Civil Rights Trail and significant landmarks associated with the era.

The breakfast will be at Norton Student Center in the Bruno Great Hall.

“It also speaks to the importance of this city and the civil rights history of this city. Birmingham-Southern was a part of that,” said Daniel Coleman, president of the college. “At the time we had a president, Henry Stanford, who was very much supportive, and we had some students that were very supportive. But like most institutions in this city and state, even ones like Birmingham-Southern, we could have done a lot more. We are honored to be a part of this to commemorate this important history for our city and our country.”

Givan predicted that the breakfast would rank among the most significant events at the college, behind the likes visits from President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Givan said the college is a partner to the community in which it sits. She worked with other lawmakers to create a funding pool to aid the financially struggling college.

State Treasurer Young Boozer denied the college’s application for a $30 loan from the fund, but Birmingham-Southern continues fundraising efforts and has resubmitted its application.

Also, the city of Birmingham last month approved $5 million in loans for Birmingham-Southern College to remain open. College officials said the city’s funding should allow the institution to remain open in fall of 2024.

Aaron Carlton, chairman of Birmingham’s Community Affairs Committee and the longtime event organizer, said he expects the MLK breakfast to attract 500 to 600 people this year.

“This is uniting Birmingham,” Carlton said. “You see every nationality who lives within our city and the Birmingham metro. We have total participation from the community as a whole. We just thought it was important to be inclusive of Birmingham-Southern.”

Carlton noted that Birmingham-Southern students of the Civil Rights Movement era joined their counterparts at historically Black institutions — Miles College and the former Daniel Payne College — in protests against racial segregation.

“The students of Birmingham-Southern College joined them in that crusade by marching with them to the sitting counters. So, we know there was a significant contribution that was made by the students of Birmingham-Southern,” Carlton said.

He said that the students represented a rare example of White student activism in Birmingham during the civil rights era.

Tom Reeves was a Birmingham-Southern student who began meeting with Black students from Daniel Payne College in 1960. His support caught the attention of the Ku Klux Klan after he publicly supported Daniel Payne students who staged a sit-in at a restaurant downtown.

Marti Turnipseed, an English major at Birmingham-Southern, joined a civil rights rally and sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown in 1963. Another BSC student, Sam Shirah, left the college to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Carlton said this year’s program will focus on “releasing some of the best kept secrets that were going on during that time.”