“Shattering Ceilings: Celebrating Success in Pursuit of ‘The Dream'” is the theme of the University’s 22nd annual celebration honoring Martin Luther King Jr. at 7 p.m., Monday, Jan. 19 in Graham Chapel.
Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton will begin the program with a welcome and remarks. Camille A. Nelson, visiting professor of law, will present “”Pursuing the Dream: Revisiting Dr. King’s message in the Age of Obama.”
The Rosa L. Parks Award for Meritorious Service to the Community will be presented.
The program will also include musical performances from Afriky Lolo, a nationally acclaimed West African dance company based in St. Louis, the University City High School Jazz Band, and WUSTL student groups Black Anthology, Visions Gospel Choir, Sur Awaaz South Asian a capella group and The Greenleafs female a cappella group.
A reception in the Danforth University Center will follow the program. For more information, call 935-5965.
Other MLK events:
• Sponsored by the Assembly Series, the “Human Race Machine” is a photo booth that takes a person’s picture and then shows what that person would look like as an Asian, Hispanic, Indian, Middle Eastern, Black or Caucasian person. The aim of the project is to generate a different way of talking about race, identity and other issues that divide us as a nation. The booth will be available through the evening of Jan. 16 in the north lobby of the Danforth University Center. For more information, call 935-4620.
• Prominent criminal defense attorney and civil rights advocate Michael Pinard, J.D., will address the pressing problem of prisoner reentry as the law school’s 2009 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Speaker. His talk, “The Civil Rights Dimensions of Prisoner Reentry: the Impact on Individuals, Families, and Communities,” will take place at noon Thursday, Jan. 22 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in the School of Law. The event is co-sponsored by the Black Law Students Association. For more information, call 935-7567.
• The Society of Black Student Social Workers at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work will host, in remembrance of King, “Financial Freedom Seminar: Achieving Economic Independence Through Education,” from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 17 in Brown Hall, Room 100. The seminar is designed for St. Louis community youth and adults interested in building wealth, repairing and maintaining good credit, purchasing a home or starting and expanding a business. The event is free but registration is required. For more information, call 935-7262.
• The School of Medicine will present its annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration lecture at 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 19, in the Eric P. Newman Education Center. William Julius Wilson, the Lewis P. And Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University, will present “Framing the Issue: Political Discourse and Race Relations in the Barack Obama Era.” A sociologist and leading scholar on urban poverty, Wilson is the director of the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program at Harvard’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. For more information, call 362-6854.