He's a former U.S. surgeon general who said that with regard to health care, the government "can no longer find acceptable a system that leaves so many out."

Dr. David Satcher, who served as the nation's chief health educator from 1998 to 2002, will be in Lancaster next month to speak at an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day event here.

And he will be here to address an important topic for lower-income and minority Americans: "Continuing The Dream: Creating a Healthy Community."

Satcher will be keynote speaker at the 20th-annual Lancaster King Day Breakfast on Monday, Jan. 21, from 7 to 9 a.m. at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, 750 E. King St.

The event is held annually by Lancaster's Crispus Attucks Community Center.

"In this time of concern about the health of our communities, whether it be social, nutritional or emotional, it will be especially interesting to hear Dr. Satcher's insights into current events as they relate to Dr. King's message," said Cheryl Holland-Jones, the center's executive director.

Satcher was inspired to become a physician after suffering a potentially lethal bout of whooping cough and pneumonia at age 2.

As a black child growing up on a rural Alabama farm in the 1940s, the odds of survival were stacked against him, he recalled in a March 2004 address at Franklin & Marshall College.

Two of his nine siblings had died very young, and his family had no access to hospital care.

Along with serving as U.S. surgeon general, he was assistant secretary for health from 1998 to 2001 and also headed the Centers for Disease Control — three of the most powerful health-care positions in the world.

He said in his 2004 address at F&M that, too often, "health care is a commodity to be traded to the highest bidder ... the result is a system that allows 44 million people around the country to go uninsured."

The King holiday honors the late U.S. civil-rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was assassinated in April 1968.

The annual King Day breakfast is the main fund-raiser for the Crispus Attucks center, a community and social center for Lancaster's African-American community that earlier this year celebrated its 80th anniversary.

Last year, the guest speaker at the breakfast was Gwen Ifill, a PBS-TV senior news correspondent.

In July, the center opened new administrative offices at 404 S. Duke St., adjacent to its former Howard Avenue site.

Local medical doctors Anthony Mastropietro and Erika Powell will serve as honorary chairs of the event, and WGAL-TV anchor Ron Martin will again serve as emcee. The breakfast is underwritten by Fulton Bank.

CONTACT US: doconnor@LNPnews.com or 481-6033