AUSTIN, Texas—A celebration of diversity and tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will be held at 7 p.m., Wednesday (Jan. 15) at The University of Texas at Austin. The public is invited to attend the event on the 74th anniversary of the slain civil rights leader’s birthday.
Dr. Edmund Gordon, director of the Center for African and African American Studies and an associate professor of anthropology at The University of Texas at Austin, will be the keynote speaker. The program also will feature performances by the Innervisions Gospel Choir and elementary school students from the Texas Academy of Excellence.
"Our goal is to celebrate the dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to educate everyone about his contribution to society," said Gherin Kirkland, student director for African American Affairs at the university’s Multicultural Information Center.
Celebration participants will meet at the Martin Luther King Jr. statue at 7 p.m. and walk in a candlelight vigil to the Art Building auditorium, room 1.102, for the program presentation. The statue is on the East Mall between Speedway and San Jacinto streets and the Art Building is near the northeast corner of 23rd and San Jacinto streets.
King, a dominant force in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, died from an assassin’s bullet in 1968. A statue in his memory was erected on The University of Texas at Austin’s East Mall in 1998.
For more information contact: Gherin Kirkland or Brenda Burt, Multicultural Information Center, 512-232-2958, or Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-475-7847.
