The theme of the 19th annual Martin Luther King Jr. holiday celebration, scheduled for Jan. 17-19, is “When Will Dr. King’s Vision of Equality Become Our Reality?”

But maybe a better question to ask is, “How can we keep the Lawrence celebration itself a reality?”

That’s because it’s increasingly difficult for Ecumenical Fellowship Inc., the group of eight Lawrence congregations that has organized and sponsored the event for the past 18 years, to find the money to put it all together.

“Right now the problem is getting funds. The economy is down, and it just seems like it gets harder and harder every year to get funding and support,” says the Rev. William Dulin, president of the fellowship and pastor of Calvary Church of God in Christ, 646 Ala.

Several Lawrence businesses and individuals have offered financial support for the celebration for years. And funding has also dependably come from Kansas University, Haskell Indian Nations University, the Lawrence school board and the city of Lawrence.

“But we would love to have a broader financial base. It gets very costly,” Dulin says.

One challenge is trying to locate nationally known speakers who are available — and affordable enough — to deliver keynote addresses at the celebration’s annual banquet at the Kansas Union and an ecumenical, commemorative service each Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the Lied Center.

This year, KU football coach Mark Mangino will speak at the annual banquet Jan. 17. Lisa Miree, Miss Black USA, will be the keynote speaker at the Jan. 19 commemorative service. Lawrence pastors and civic leaders also will speak at the service.

“We used to always try to have a minister (speak) on Monday (at the service), but it seems that people like to gravitate toward somebody with a life story. A message is always good, but at the same time, I think people can relate more to those who have come through a struggle and have achieved something,” Dulin says.

The keynote speaker at the commemorative service last year was Yvonne Thornton, the first black woman in the United States to be board-certified in high-risk obstetrics.

Dulin, who has headed the committee that has organized the King celebration in Lawrence since its first year, laments that more funds aren’t available to support it.

“The community really came together for the Langston Hughes event (the Langston Hughes Symposium, Feb. 7-10, 2002). Yet when we have the Martin Luther King Celebration, we can’t get the money in. This is something that’s not just important for Lawrence, but for the whole nation,” he says.

The celebration used to receive funding from the Douglas County Commission, but that relationship grew strained in recent years when two commissioners expressed discomfort with the role of faith-specific prayers at the event, as well as a perceived evangelical flavor.

The Ecumenical Fellowship hasn’t accepted any contributions for the King celebration from the commission for the past two years, according to Dulin, because they come with stipulations.

It’s still important to remember that King was a pastor and a man grounded in Christian faith, Dulin says, and the assassinated leader’s relationship with God imbued the civil rights movement with a distinctly spiritual nature.

“It’s very, very important, and that’s something we have tried to maintain in Lawrence. We try to keep the celebration pointing to God. If it wasn’t for God, the advancements that have been made, I don’t believe would have been made,” he says.