A celebration of the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Yale Hon. LLD. ‘64) will take place on the Yale campus beginning on Martin Luther King’s birthday, January 15, and continuing through a two-day festival on January 20-21.
The first in the series of events will be a reading of King’s own words by students, staff and faculty in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. The reading will take place on Tuesday, January 15, 4:30-5:30 p.m. in the first floor lobby of the EPH building (LEPH), 60 College Street. Wine and cheese will be served.
On Thursday, January 17, Susan Lederer, in the History of Medicine program, will give a talk, “Red, White and Black: Blood and Race in the USA.” The lecture is about the ways in which public health policies concerning blood transfusions have reflected prevalent attitudes and prejudices in American history. The talk, sponsored by the Program for Humanities in Medicine, will take place at 5 p.m. in the Beaumont Room, Sterling Hall of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street.
The Peabody Museum’s two-day tribute to King begins at noon on Sunday, January 20, with a performance of “Drum Circle for Peace,” by Michael Mills and Drums No Guns. The jazz group Harry Ellis and Deep Intentions will follow. Among the other performers at the Peabody on Sunday are St. Luke’s Steel Band, the African Arawak Connection and storytellers Edi Jackson and Karen Johnson. The Hip Hop CafŽ will be a hub of music, dancing and free snacks through the day, and interactive stations all around the Museum will engage participants on social and environmental issues.
A highlight of the Peabody’s celebration on Sunday will be the Arnold J. Alderman Memorial Lecture by the noted environmental justice advocate Robert Bullard. Bullard, who teaches sociology and heads the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, is a leading expert on race and the environment. He is the author of 10 books and many essays that address environmental justice, environmental racism, urban land use and other related topics. He will speak at 3 p.m. in the Peabody auditorium.
Also on Sunday, at 4:30 p.m., in Room 211 of Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 63 High Street, there will be a screening of the acclaimed PBS series on the civil rights movement, “Eyes on the Prize.” The final Sunday event honoring King is an interfaith prayer service, sponsored by the Interfaith Alliance for Justice, at 8 p.m. in Dwight Hall, 67 High Street.
On Monday there will be events acknowledging King’s legacy in many venues throughout the Yale campus. Welcome Centers, providing campus maps and information, will be at Dwight Hall in the morning; and Room 114, Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall (SSS), the corner of Grove and Prospect streets, throughout the day. A multi-media display highlighting King’s life will be on exhibit in the rotunda of Woolsey Hall, the corner of College and Grove streets.
Opening ceremonies for the day’s activities begin at 9 a.m. in Battell Chapel, the corner of Elm and College streets. A joint venture of the Martin Luther King Day Coalition with the Black Church at Yale, the Yale Divinity School and students of the Yale Graduate School, the event features welcoming speeches, readings and a performance by the group Divine Grace. At 10:15, Yale President Richard C. Levin will speak. He will be followed by John K. Johnson, the student director of the Afro-American Cultural Center and a proponent of Martin Luther King Day celebrations.
At 10:30 a.m., the Peabody Museum, which will continue to operate its Hip Hop CafŽ throughout the day, will host a Community Poetry Open Mic. All are invited to share their poetry. Listed among the groups performing at the Peabody on Monday are the Soulettes drill team, Teller and the Troubador and Harry Ellis and Deep Intentions.
From 10:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. there will be events for Yale College students and graduate students organized by Dwight Hall, the Office for Diversity and Equal Opportunity and the McDougal Graduate Student Center. These include a mobilization of pre-selected volunteers and collections for New Haven Reads and other local programs.
At noon there will be a community interfaith worship service sponsored by Interfaith Cooperative Ministries at Immanuel Baptist Church, 1324 Chapel Street. The Rev. Samuel Ross Lee will speak.
Also from noon until 6 p.m., the Afro-American Cultural Center, 211 Park Street, will feature ongoing film screening of “Power to the People,” “A Great and Mighty Walk” and “Martin Luther King Speaks at Stanford, 1967.” Refreshments will be served.
At the Peabody, the Fairhaven Breakers will put on a breakdance performance at 12:30, and from 1 to 3:30 p.m., a Poetry Slam led by Ngoma will give invited poets a chance to compete in verse.
The Graduate School’s Office for Diversity and Equal Opportunity is sponsoring two discussion panels: At 1:30 p.m.: “Civil Rights Movement: Dead or Alive,” featuring such civil rights scholars and community leaders as Rogers Smith (University of Pennsylvania), Adolph Reed (New School for Social Research), Monifa Adele (Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, NYC) and Barbara Tinney (New Haven Family Alliance). At 3:30 p.m. “Contemporary Art Forms and the Political Mobilization of Youth” will feature the artists Jonathan Jackson and D’Lo. Both discussions will take place in SSS, Room 114. For more information about these events, contact the Office for Diversity at 432-0763 or grad.diversity@yale.edu.
The Graduate School will host a Martin Luther King Day Reception, 5:30-7 p.m. at the McDougal Graduate Student Center Common Room, 320 York Street.
At 7 p.m. the celebration will wind down at Battell Chapel with closing ceremonies and remarks by University Chaplain, the Reverend Frederick Streets. Events include announcement of the winners of an essay contest and a talent show with performing groups Rhythmic Blue, Unity, Divine Grace and others.
A candlelit procession will follow.
All events are free and open to the public. Any changes in this schedule of events will be posted on the web site: www.yale.edu/opa