Celebrating Black History Through Personal Stories at the Cass County Breakfast Event

On February 4, 2026, our own Brenda Beadenkopf was honored to emcee the Black History Breakfast from 7:30–9:30 AM, hosted and sponsored by the Cass County Council on Aging in Cassopolis.

She started the morning off by telling some Black History stories from her own Philadelphia upbringing. Her Quaker parents raised her and her five siblings in two communities that intentionally included Black, White, Jewish, and Asian neighbors during the 1950s and ’60s, when de facto racial segregation was the norm.

Brenda also talked of her mother, Marian Walker, helping to desegregate traditionally Black Cheyney University, when it was Cheyney College, by being the first white person hired for a racial quota in its administration after Civil Rights legislation was enacted.

Beadenkopf concluded her talk with the amazing story of her father, Charlie Walker, who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement as an expert in nonviolence, assisting with training the leaders in nonviolence and writing training materials. She put in a plug for the book she wrote about her parents, A Quaker Behind the Dream: Charlie Walker and the Civil Rights Movement, Volumes 1 and 2 (sold on Amazon and Barnes and Noble), and read two selections of letters from King to Walker.

In one of them, Dr. King wrote, “Let me express my personal appreciation to you for the interest you have taken in our struggle. Your moral support and Christian generosity give us renewed courage and vigor to carry on.” In the second, he said, “We were very happy to have you visit Montgomery. I count it a real personal privilege of having the opportunity of meeting you. I hope we will be able to renew this fellowship at some early date, and that I will see you again.”