Each year, Rosa Parks’ legacy as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement is honored with a prayer breakfast on a date near her birth date. This year, Lillie Johnson and her group will host the event Saturday, February 10, 9 a.m., in the Greater Mount Triumph Missionary Baptist Church fellowship hall. Everyone age 15 and older is invited to attend.
The keynote speaker for this year’s breakfast is Tuskegee Mayor Lawrence “Tony” Haygood, Jr., who was elected to his position in August 2016. Prior to that time he served four years on the Tuskegee City Council as Councilman-at-Large, Mayor Pro Tem. He is vice-chair of the Committee on Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources with the Alabama League of Municipalities, and also serves on the Committee for Federal and State Legislation. The previous governor appointed Mayor Haygood to the Alabama Workforce Development Board.
Currently, the mayor serves as Economic / Business Development Specialist at the Tuskegee-Macon County Community Development Corporation (TMCDC). He has served in this position for over eight years while working closely with the Tuskegee University Cooperative Extension Program and as a member of the Booker T. Washington Economic Summit Planning Committee. Mayor Haygood has worked with the TMCDC staff to promote business and industrial development, support improvement of community entrance corridors, perform housing rehabilitation, conduct entrepreneurial training, and manage a business incubator with a community revolving loan fund. As a grant writer, he worked with TUCEP and TMCDC staff to acquire substantial grant funding for community programs. Additionally, he serves as a local tour guide and planner as requested. Most recently he served as vice-chairman of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Community Development Action Coalition (CDAC) national board. He previously served as president of Southern Community College, chairman of the Tuskegee Area Health Education Center, as well as state vice-president for Alabama New South Coalition, among other positions. He was selected as the Alabama State Tree Farmer of the Year in 1998 and received the Tuskegee University Merit Farm Family award in 2005 at the 113th Annual Farmer’s Conference.
A member and past president of Alpha Nu Lamda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Mayor Haygood received his undergraduate degree at
Rhodes College with a major in Political Science and a minor concentration in Economics. He received an MBA degree from Auburn University Montgomery
with additional studies in Management Science at Krannert School of Management at Purdue University in Indiana and The Georgia Institute of Technology in
Atlanta. In the summer of 2011,Mayor Haygood completed the Intensive Economic Development Training Course at Auburn University in Auburn.