National speakers highlight celebration of King's legacy

Two national speakers will highlight Grand Valley's celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Events will extend beyond the national holiday and run the week of January 16-21.

Bakari Kitwana, journalist and author, will help kick off programming on Monday, January 16, with a presentation at 12:30 p.m. in the Kirkhof Center on the Allendale Campus. Kitwana's presentation will follow a silent march on campus that will begin at noon at Zumberge Library.

The author of four books, Kitwana is a senior media fellow at the Jamestown Project, a Harvard Law think-tank; and CEO of Rap Sessions, a company that conducts townhall meetings around the country on difficult topics facing the hip-hop generation. Kitwana’s latest book is “Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era.” He earned a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees from the University of Rochester.

Kitwana will also give a keynote address at the 26th annual Grand Rapids community celebration, beginning at 6:30 p.m. January 16 at Ford Fieldhouse at Grand Rapids Community College.

Longtime civil rights advocate and author Michelle Alexander will give two presentations at Grand Valley, Wednesday and Thursday, January 18-19. Alexander is the author of “The New Jim Crow,” a critique in which Alexander argues that racial caste has not ended in America, it has been redesigned. Alexander writes that by targeting black men and other people of color, the U.S. justice system functions as a system of racial control.

The book was published in 2010. Lauded by critics nationally, Alexander received a 2011 NAACP Image Award for outstanding literary work-non-fiction. Alexander is a former law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. She now holds dual appointments at Ohio State University in the College of Law and Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.

Her keynote presentation is set for 5 p.m. January 18 in the Kirkhof Center. That address will be simulcast to an audience at Loosemore Auditorium in the DeVos Center on GVSU’s Pew Grand Rapids Campus. She will discuss her book at 10 a.m. January 19 in the Cook-DeWitt Center.

With the theme "Shake the World: Moving Dreams to Reality," all King celebration week events are free and open to the public. Other GVSU events are detailed below:

• Monday, January 16: Community breakfasts will be held at 8:45 a.m. in the Kirkhof Center, Grand River Room, and DeVos Center, Loosemore Auditorium.

Faculty speakers will be Louis Moore, assistant professor of history, at the Allendale Campus breakfast; and Regina McClinton, director of Intercultural Competence and Experience and associate professor of cell and molecular biology, at the Pew Grand Rapids Campus breakfast. All students, faculty and staff
members are invited.

• Tuesday, January 17: Melanie Shell-Weiss, assistant professor of liberal studies, will discuss "Race, Migration and Social Justice: What Would MLK Say Today?" at 1 p.m. in the Kirkhof Center, Pere Marquette Room.

• Saturday, January 21: "Day of Service" when students, faculty and staff members will volunteer within the community in honor of King and civil rights activist Gloria Richardson. About 100 people will gather in the Kirkhof Center at 9 a.m. before heading to the Feeding America West Michigan Food Bank and other locations.

For more information about King events, visit www.gvsu.edu/mlk. Contact the Office of Multicultural Affairs at (616) 331-2177 with questions.