Dr. Wendi El-Amin is the keynote speaker for Springfield's annual King Day breakfast

Dr. Wendi Wills El-Amin, the associate dean for equity, diversity and inclusion at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, will be the keynote speaker at the Springfield Frontiers International Club's 49th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast on Jan. 15.

The breakfast at the Wyndham City Centre, 700 E. Adams St., starts at 8:30 a.m.

Tickets are $35 and may be purchased from Frontiers Club members.

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El-Amin is also on faculty at SIU Medicine in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and provides care at the Center for Family Medicine in Springfield. She is dually appointed to the SIU’s Department of Medical Education.

El-Amin formerly served as assistant dean of medical education at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. She was the director of outreach at the Center on Health Disparities and director of the UVA Cancer Center Health Disparity Initiative and as an assistant professor of family medicine and public health at the University of Virginia.

El-Amin was formerly in private practice at Wills Diagnostic Clinic in Houston.

She completed her residency in family practice and community medicine as chief resident at the University of Texas-Houston. She earned her medical degree at Georgetown University School of Medicine and a bachelor’s degree in biology at Hampton University.

El-Amin serves on the boards of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Illinois, Springfield YMCA and the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln.

The Frontiers Club will use a portion of the breakfast proceeds along with the proceeds from its annual golf outing to generate financial support for the Positive Youth Development Programfor sixth, seventh and eighth graders and the Junior Frontiers for high schoolers.  

The funds are also used to help with Frontiers Club scholarships named for two deceased members of the organization, J.D. Washington and James Forstall, the 2016 State Journal-Register First Citizen Award winner.

Past King Day breakfast speakers

2023: Gerald A. McWorter, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the great-great grandson of Free Frank McWorter, the founder of New Philadelphia.

2022: The Rev. T. Ray McJunkins, pastor of Union Baptist Church, Springfield, and the Rev. William DeShone Rosser, pastor of Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, Springfield.

2021: The Rev. Melvin Charles Smith, pastor of Mount Moriah-East Baptist Church, Memphis.

2020: Dr. Wesley Robinson-McNeese, associate dean for diversity and inclusion at SIU School of Medicine, Springfield.

2019: Tracey Meares, professor of law and a founding director of the Justice Collaboratory at the Yale University Law School.

2018: W.J. Michael Cody, Memphis attorney who assisted in a federal case for King.

2017: Anna Braziel Jackson, senior English lecturer at Southern Illinois University (Carbondale).

2016: Khalilah Brown-Dean, associate professor of political science at Quinnipiac University, news contributor.

2015: Yohuru Williams, author, professor of history at Fairfield University.

2014: The Rev. Cora Austin, senior pastor of Faith Church, Nashville, and national chaplain, Frontiers International.

2013: Fred Clark, Freedom Rider.

2012: The Rev. Samuel Mann, director emeritus, United Inner City Services, Kansas City.

2011: Thelma Wyatt Moore, retired Georgia judge who served as a trial attorney with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

2010: The Rev. Joseph Brown, professor and director of the Black American Studies Program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and a Jesuit priest.

2009: Lawrence T. Guyot, author, civil rights advocate, and community organizer.

2008: Edward E. Hearn, Springfield native, motivational speaker, attorney, and head of The Church of Grace, a ministry in Chicago.

2007: Ernest G. Green, managing director of public finance for Lehman Brothers' Washington, D.C. office and former assistant secretary of labor in the Carter administration.

2006: Jim Lewis, U.S. Attorney for the central district of Illinois, who promoted voting rights for Black citizens in the mid-1960s in Mississippi.

2005: Louanner Peters, former deputy governor of Illinois, the first Black woman to hold that position.

2004: Jawanza Kunjufu, author of more than 25 books and president of African American Images, a communications company in Chicago.

2003: Reginald Weaver, Danville native who served two terms as president of the National Education Association.

2002: David L. Beckley, president of Rust College in Holly Springs, Miss.

2001: Joe Madison, radio talk show host.

2000: Hon. Alan Page, NFL Hall of Famer and associate justice with the Minnesota Supreme Court.

1999: Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

1998: Cephus Johnson, international chairman of Frontiers International.

1997: Mamie Till-Mobley, mother of Emmett Till, whose 1955 murder in Mississippi helped mobilize the civil rights movement.

1996: Bernita C. Berry, sociologist and one of America's leading authorities on race, ethnic relations, gender, class, and public policy issues.

1995: The Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, pastor Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, N.Y.

1994: James Farmer, who helped found the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

1993: The Rev. Cordy Tindell "C.T." Vivian, minister and author who worked with King.

1992: Randall Robinson, attorney, author and activist, founder of TransAfrica and supporter of the South Africa anti-apartheid movement and former Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide

1991: The Rev. B. Herbert Martin Sr., early civil rights leader and pastor of Progressive Community Center in Chicago.

1990: The Rev. Dr. Robert B. Ingram, minister and former president of the National Conference of Black Mayors.

1989: Robert M. Walker, mayor of Vicksburg, Miss., who championed to get a statue erected to honor Black Civil War veterans.

1988: Sister Francesca Thompson, a nun and a longtime speech and drama instructor who worked with Gilda Radner and Christine Lahti.

1987: The Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, a chief of staff for King and early board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

1986: Tony Brown, "Television's Civil Rights Crusader," helped coordinate a march on Detroit that featured King and 500,000 followers.

1985: The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, minister and civil rights activist, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

1984: Martin L. King III, eldest son of King who later headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.

1983: Rosa Parks, the "First Lady of Civil Rights" whose refusal to give up a bus seat to a white passenger sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955.

1982: Arnette R. Hubbard, Circuit Court judge in Chicago who would become the first woman to serve as president of the National Bar Association.

1981: The Rev. Edward A. Hailes Sr., longtime pastor of Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and organizer through the NAACP and Southern Christian Leadership Council.

1980: Charles Evers, former Fayette, Miss., mayor who led efforts to desegregate beaches in Mississippi.

1979: Corneal A. Davis, civil rights leader and member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1943 to 1979.

1978: The Rev. Albert R. Sampson, leader in the Southern Christian Leadership Council and longtime minister of Chicago's Fernwood United Methodist Church, was ordained by King.

1977: Bishop Joseph Howze, the first Black person to serve as a Roman Catholic bishop in the U.S., who headed the Diocese of Biloxi, Miss., from 1977 to 2001

1976: Most Rev. JosephA. McNicholas, bishop of the Springfield Roman Catholic Diocese; Rabbi Barry Marks, longtime rabbi at Temple Israel in Springfield; the Rev. Rudolph S. Shoultz, longtime pastor of Union Baptist Church in Springfield.

Source: Springfield Club of Frontiers International

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Dr. Wendi El-Amin of SIU School of Medine is MLK Breakfast speaker