A dearth of African-Americans on the federal bench remains among the issues in race, Mississippi’s only black federal judge said this morning at a breakfast honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Judge Henry T. Wingate told more than 200 gathered at Vicksburg Convention Center that many capable jurists should have joined him in the federal judiciary since he received the lifetime appointment from President Reagan in 1985.

“I think it’s wrong,” Wingate said. “We have a number of persons who should have been appointed.”

Wingate, 60, was also the first African-American to work in the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, serving there from 1976 to 1980, and was assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi for a year before being appointed to the bench. He became chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in 2003.

Those gathered at the city convention venue also heard from members of the Omicron Rho Lambda Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, which sponsored the 19th annual scholarship breakfast in Vicksburg.

King’s ethos of nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in the segregated South provided “a candle as well as a light” to the civil rights movement, fraternity brother Cedric Tillman said.

Events to take place in Vicksburg later today include a parade down Washington Street between Belmont and Jackson streets and a communitywide program at Vicksburg Auditorium.

The holiday honoring King’s life was first observed in 1986. It was recognized in all 50 states by 2000.