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QUICK FINDER Business 17 A PROPOSED DEKALB DEKALB OFFICIALS Education 18-19A RESORT UP FOR A WELCOME A KING Sports 21-23A REVOTE Opinion Classified 5A 20A LOCAL, 8A LOCAL, 12A RESTAURANT BRINGS A BIT OF CHINA TO CHAMBLEE BUSINESS, 17A The Official Legal Organ ofDeKalb County, GA. Serving East Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, Chamblee, Clarkston, Decatur, Doraville, Dunwoody, Lithonia, Pine Lake, Tucker and Stone Mountain. \jjti lib Social/ (9 thechampionnewspaper.com SECTION A: VOL. 24 NO. 34 TheChampion ist Place General excellence Award Winner Georgia Press Association ‘Better Newspaper Contest’ 2007, 2009-2014 FEB. 19 - 25, 2015 500 DeKalb native issues call for new civil rights leaders by Andrew Cauthen andrew@dekalb champ, com On Feb. 15, 1957, Dr. Mar tin Luther King Jr. convened a group of young pastors to address the pressing civil rights issues of their time, and the historic Southern Christian Leadership Conference was born. Fifty-eight years to the day later, a group of ministers answered a similar call by a DeKalb County native. Rev. Markel Hutchins, a 37-year-old civil and human rights activist, said he was encouraged to issue the call by Rev. Cameron Alexander pastor of the Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta be cause of the absence of young civil rights leadership in the country. “The civil rights leaders that are on the forefront still that are best known among the common citizenry in America today are.. .Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Joseph Lowery and An drew Young. “Those people are in their 80s; some of them are in their 90s,” Hutchins said. “It is unconscionable to me that Atlanta is the birthplace of Martin Luther King }r., cradle of the American Civil Rights Movement, home to the larg est concentration of African- American college students in the country, one of the top five cities in terms of the number of megachurches.. .,and there’s not a thriving, innovative na tional civil and human rights organization that’s on the fore front of the struggles for peace and justice and liberty of all that is based in Atlanta.” Hutchins is an Atlanta resident who spends much of his time at his family home in Lithonia taking care of his father’s affairs and supporting his mother: his father, Fred erick Leon Hutchins, is in a nursing facility and mother, Dorothy, is in her late 60s. Currently a member of Philadelphia Baptist Church in Atlanta, Hutchins started preaching at age 8. “I used to call together my family members, and gather together dolls and figurines, and preach to them. It was mimicking what I heard preachers in church do, but I was very much drawn to that vocation—that kind of com passion and passionate ser vice,” said Hutchins who was formally licensed to preach at age 16 at St. Paul A.M.E Church in Stone Mountain. When he was 17 years old, he had “the unique opportu nity” to serve on a special as signment as a senior pastor of an A.M.E. church in Wayside while the church’s permanent pastor was ill. See Leaders on page 15A Hutchins Rev. Markel Hutchins is a civil and human rights activist who is seeking to raise the next generation of civil rights leaders. Photos by Travis Hudgons 64 116 DCHAMPIONNEWSPAPER QCHAMPIONNEWS gCHAMPIONNEWSPAPER ©CHAMPNEWSPAPER