Northwestern University will
commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a series of
virtual Dream Week events beginning with Mariame Kaba’s keynote address at 4
p.m. CST Wednesday, Jan. 13. Several events are free and open to the public,
including the keynote.
Additional public events
include an oratorical contest at noon, Friday, Jan. 15, the Alpha Phi Alpha
Candlelight Vigil at 3 p.m., Monday, Jan. 18 and a panel on systemic racism in
law and medicine at noon, Tuesday, Jan. 19.
MLK Dream Week 2021 is a
cross-campus collaboration with the Office
of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion.
Reservation links and event
information are available on the Northwestern
MLK website.
The keynote speaker was
selected with this year’s One
Book, One Northwestern selection, Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy,” in
mind as well as the Women’s Center’s programmatic
theme of Mutual Aid and Community Engagement.
Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator,
curator and prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionist who is active in
movements for racial, gender and transformative justice. Kaba is founder and
director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a mission
to end youth incarceration, and a member of the Movement for Black Lives Policy
Table. Kaba is currently a researcher at Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action at
the Barnard Center for Research on Women, a project she
co-founded with Andrea Ritchie in 2018.
Evanston
Events
MLK Dream Week Keynote with
Mariame Kaba, 4 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 13
In her MLK keynote address,
Kaba will discuss prison industrial complex abolition as a vision for a
restructured society based on care, cooperation and true safety.
The program will also
include a video performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” performed by the
Northwestern Community Ensemble and alumni in honor of the 50th anniversary of
the ensemble’s founding.
Eva
Jefferson Day, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday, Jan. 18
Northwestern students will
lead a virtual program of arts, crafts and discussion about the legacy of Dr.
King for Family Focus Evanston students.
Candlelight
Vigil: “Activism during a pandemic and the healing of
incarcerated peoples,” 3 p.m., Monday, Jan. 18
The first MLK Day at
Northwestern was established in 1980, three years before the national holiday
was established, by the Alpha Mu Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, Dr. King’s
fraternity.
This year’s Candlelight
Vigil address will be given by Hill Harper,
an actor, author, activist, philanthropist and Brother of Alpha Phi Alpha
Fraternity, Inc.
Harper is an award-winning
actor who starred in the CBS TV dramas “CSI: NY” and “Limitless” and USA
Network’s “Covert Affairs,” and alongside Will Smith in the film “Concussion.”
He is the author of four New York Times bestselling books, including “Letters
to an Incarcerated Brother,” and has earned seven NAACP Image Awards for his
writing and acting.
Harper is the founder of
Manifest Your Destiny Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to
empowering underserved youth through mentorship, scholarship and grant
programs.
The Candlelight Vigil will
also include a video performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” performed by
the Northwestern Community Ensemble and alumni in honor of the 50th anniversary
of the ensemble’s founding.