ORLANDO, Fla. – For 25 years, hundreds of people have remembered the life and legacy of an Orlando civil rights pioneer, as the nation recognizes the message of Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1973, Arthur "Pappy" Kennedy was Orlando's first African-American elected official. His granddaughter Dr. Vikki Kennedy-Johnson was the keynote speaker Monday at the annual YMCA of Central Florida Prayer Breakfast to honor Kennedy.
"One of the things I remember about Pappy Kennedy is he never met a stranger. Which is ultimately what led him to be the first elected African-American official here," said Kennedy-Johnson.
Nearly a thousand people attended the breakfast, many call his life an example of the change Martin Luther King Jr. hoped to see.
Kennedy received support from voters in his second election in 1976. He was re-elected with 78 percent of the vote, the largest percentage in Orlando's history.
"They are both heroes. Pappy was a hero here in the community, and it's a legacy, it's a great legacy," said Milagros Almarante, regional manager of Samaritan's Purse in Florida.
"He did make a pathway for those of us that are here to go on. As you notice we have a lot of African-American commissioners both city and county," said Stella Lewis, a guest at the event.
Kennedy spent most of his life in the hospitality industry, as a deacon at Shiloh Baptist Church, and an advocate for education.
"What he was in public is the way he was in private, and to me that's a lesson that you really can't teach, by words or by lessons you have to live that," said his granddaughter, Dr. Vikki Kennedy-Johnson.