WOMAN ON FIRE

Dr. Karissa Culbreath was keynote speaker at this year’s MLK breakfast and she lit the room on fire. The audience was truly ignited by her passion and forthrightness. Woe to those who had to follow her! By her own admission, her time at the mic was “a full realization of all of the parts of myself,” like an anthem or thesis of her work.

She wanted the breakfast guests to “really think about what it takes to make a healthy and vibrant community.” That starts with rethinking health equity in every single area of our lives; redefining what a healthy community looks like; and “working in all the systems to make sure that we can achieve that.”

Born and raised here in Albuquerque, Culbreath got her undergraduate degree—and her husband

Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, and Sheriff John Allen on the dais.

John Rencher, attending for the first time, appreciated the chance to network, noting, “Gatherings like these are important, especially in New Mexico, because for an underrepresented community like ours, it’s imperative to stay united, and it makes me want to be more involved in helping the community flourish.”

And Africana Studies Professor Marsha Hardeman was part of the morning’s resounding choir and spoke to Black history’s importance, stating, “We have so much more to learn about our forebears, and should honor them, continually, to do justice to their posterity and our collective legacy as a Black people, strong, unsinkable, and ever-victorious in our faith and hope for a righteous justice.”