LOGAN – Local activist groups will sponsor a Community Potluck Picnic on Thursday, July 17 to give political candidates for municipal posts in Logan and North Logan an opportunity to speak with voters.
That event will take place from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the North Pavilion of Merlin Olsen Central Park in Logan.
The Cache Valley gathering is also part of a nationwide commemoration of the legacy of U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) called “Good Trouble Lives On,” according to local organizer Jim Evans.
“It’s a nationwide day of peaceful, non-violent action rooted in the legacy of the civil rights movement and inspired by John Lewis’ call to make ‘good trouble, necessary trouble’,” Evans explains. “There are nine similar events planned here in Utah and over 1,300 nationwide.”
The Potluck Picnic here is being hosted by We The People Cache Valley, the same group that organized monthly protests against Trump administration policies in the spring of this year. The local chapter of the League of Women Voters is also assisting.
Evans said that 13 of the 19 candidates for municipal posts in the Aug. 12 primary election in Logan and North Logan have already signaled their intent to appear at the Potluck Picnic.
They each will present brief remarks, followed by an opportunity for community members to meet with the candidates informally.
The organizing groups will also distribute information about voter registration and balloting deadlines in the municipal primary elections slated for Aug. 12.
John Lewis was an American civil right activist who served in the U.S. House from 1987 until the time of his death in 2020.
He participated in the Nashville sit-ins and Freedom Rides in 1960; was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s; and helped to organized the 1963 March on Washington.
A Democrat, Lewis served 17 terms in Congress. His service to America was recognized by numerous honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom bestowed by President Barak Obama in 2011.
Additional information about the organizers of the Potluck Picnic in Logan can be found by going online to www.goodtroubleliveson.org, https://www.lwvutah.org/about-cache and https://wethepeoplecv.blogspot.com/
Merlin Olsen Central Park is located at 290 East Center Street in Logan.