History

Dr. Kendi is one of America’s foremost historians and leading antiracist scholars. He is a National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of six books for adults and five books for children. Dr. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the Founding Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Dr. Kendi is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News Racial Justice Contributor. He is the host of new action podcast Be Antiracist.

Princeton professor of African-American studies, civil rights advocate, and author Dr. Cornel West drew an audience of 1,200, the first time that a keynote speaker for the MLK celebration has drawn over 1,000 people in several years. A well-known champion for social justice, West wrote “Race Matters,” a book that changed the course of America’s dialogue on race, justice and democracy when it was published in 1993.

Student organizations receiving funding through the MLK committee were required to present during the week, and their workshops were the highest attended. Four student groups made presentations on the King legacy and how it continues to impact us today: Organización de Estudiantes Latino Americanos; Black Student Alliance; Intertribal Native Council; and the International Student Alliance.

Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, President and founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, is one of America’s foremost political figures. Over the past thirty years he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality, and economic and social justice. Rev. Jackson has been called the “conscience of the nation” and “the great unifier,” challenging America to establish just and humane priorities. He is known for bringing people together on common ground across lines of race, class, gender, and belief.

President and CEO of the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King, III continues to follow in the footsteps of his late father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King, III’s dedication to promoting nonviolence action to rid the world of social, political, and economic injustice has propelled him to the forefront as one of the nation’s most ardent advocates for the oppressed and the disillusioned. He was instrumental in getting Georgia legislators to change the state’s flag, an offensive and divisive symbol for many Georgians. In the 1980’s, King was incarcerated for protesting against injustice in South Africa, and for supporting the freedom of Nelson Mandela. Throughout the 1990’s, he addressed the moral and political dilemmas of Haiti, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. He has spoken to the United Nation on behalf of individuals living with AIDS, and has proactively confronted racial profiling by conducting hearings that led to the passage of anti-racial profiling resolutions.

Angela Davis is known internationally for her ongoing work to combat all forms of oppression in the United States and abroad. Over the years, she has been active as a student, teacher, writer, scholar, and activist. She is a living witness to the historical struggles of the contemporary era. Davis’ political activism began when she was a youngster in Birmingham, Alabama, and continued through her high school years in New York. But it was not until 1969 that she came into national attention after being removed from her teaching position in the Philosophy Department at UCLA as a result of her social activism. Today, Angel Davis is a tenured professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and she is the author of five books including Woman, Race, and Class; and Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday.