Journalist April Ryan responded warmly to the enthusiastic crowd who not only came out on a freezing night Wednesday to hear her remarks at the Paramount Theater, but gave her a standing ovation as she took the stage as the keynote speaker for the 2019 Community Martin Luther King Celebration.
“That warms my heart on this cold night,” she said.
Ryan, who said she prefers to describe herself as a White House correspondent who is also a black woman, joked and chatted with members of the audience as she eschewed the lectern to stroll back and forth across the stage. In a conversational style, she touched on a range of topics from the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rallies in Charlottesville to the legacies of King and black women in American history.