Washington University in St. Louis is hosting a number of events honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Monday, Jan 16. All events are free and open to the public.
The 25th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 16, in Graham Chapel. This year’s theme is “Creating a Community of Access, Inclusion and Excellence for All … Fear is Not an Option.”
KTVI Fox 2 news anchor/reporter Kim Hudson is the program emcee. Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton will give opening remarks, and Chancellor Emeritus William H. Danforth will serve as the faculty keynote speaker.
WUSTL alumnus Ron Himes, founder of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company, will be presented with the Rosa L. Parks Award for Meritorious Service to the Community. This award honors persons or organizations exhibiting the same character, conscience and courage of King and Rosa Parks. Those who are honored have given a lifetime of service to the community, and their efforts have had impact far beyond immediate circumstances, without seeking personal gain.
Himes founded The Black Rep in 1976 while still a WUSTL student. Since then, the company has developed a national reputation for staging quality productions from an African-American perspective. Himes has produced and directed more than 100 plays at The Black Rep, including August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.
Recognition also will be given to the late James E. McLeod, vice chancellor for students and dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, and an exemplary leader in the St. Louis and Washington University communities, who died Sept. 6, 2011.
The program will feature performances by Kunama Mtendaji, Yori Yori, The Stereotypes, Visions Gospel Choir and Black Anthology.
For more information, contact Harvey R. Fields Jr., committee chair, at (314) 935-5965 or visit diversity.wustl.edu/mlk.
The School of Medicine’s Office of Diversity Programs will present its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Lecture at 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 16, in the Eric P. Newman Education Center.
Melissa V. Harris-Perry, PhD, professor of political science at Tulane University and founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South, is the guest speaker.
Harris-Perry also is the author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought and of the new book Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotype, and Black Women in America. She appears as a bi-weekly guest on MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts Show and is a frequent guest on The Rachel Maddow Show and The Last Word. She also is a columnist for The Nation magazine.
For more information, call (314) 362-6854 or e-mail diversity@msnotes.wustl.edu.
Other Danforth Campus MLK events
- Ken Mack, JD, of Harvard Law School will discuss “Representing a Race: The Creation of a Civil Rights Lawyer” at noon Wednesday, Jan. 18, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom, Room 310 Anheuser-Busch Hall. The talk is part of the Public Interest Law and Policy Speaker Series.
- The Society of Black Student Social Workers at the Brown School is hosting the sixth annual “Financial Freedom Seminar” from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Jan. 21 in Brown Hall. Register at brownschool.wustl.edu/Events/Pages/FF2012.aspx.
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