NEWS RELEASE

1/13/03

Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration to include Freedom Train, talks, church services

The life and works of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., will be celebrated with a variety of activities this month, including informal talks, readings, "Freedom Train" teach-ins and church services. Monday, Jan. 20, is the national holiday honoring King, who was born Jan. 15, 1929, and assassinated April 4, 1968.

The Martin Luther King Papers Project will kick off the celebration with an open house, including an afternoon reception, on Friday, Jan. 17. From 2 to 4:30 p.m., refreshments will be served as visitors get a chance to see the collection of correspondence, published and unpublished, photographs and more from King and the civil rights movement. The event takes place at Cypress Hall on Via Ortega.

Memorial Church will be the site of two services honoring King. On Sunday, Jan. 19, at 10 a.m., a Christian worship service will feature the Rev. Scotty McLennan, dean for religious life, and the Stanford Gospel Choir. On Jan. 26 at 10 a.m., a multi-faith service will feature Dr. Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, a faculty member in theology and womanist studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., and an ordained Christian Methodist Episcopal minister.

On Monday, Jan. 20, Martin Luther King Day, Stanford students and staff will conduct Freedom Train teach-ins about King aboard a Caltrain run from San Jose to San Francisco. At 11:45 a.m., arriving riders will then participate in a symbolic march starting at Fourth and Townsend streets and ending at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

On Tuesday, Jan. 21, at 7 p.m., Tananarive Due and Patricia Stephens Due will be at the Stanford Bookstore to sign copies and read from their book, Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights.

At noon on Wednesday, Jan. 22, a birthday celebration will be held at the upstairs lounge of Tresidder Memorial Union that will include performances by the Everyday People a cappella group and the Stanford Gospel Choir. Soul food will be served.

On Wednesday, Jan. 29, in the Oak Lounge at Tresidder, a noontime conversation titled "Faith, Religion and Social Justice: Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Abraham Joshua Heschel" will feature a discussion between Professors Elizabeth Bernhardt, German studies, and Arnold Eisen, religious studies, and Dean McLennan about the modern religious leaders.

At 7 p.m. Jan. 29, civil rights activists Jean Wiley, Wazir Peacock and Bruce Hartford will tell their stories in "Civil Rights Veterans: Lessons from the Past That Shape Our Future," in the Oak Lounge at Tresidder.

At 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 30, Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, a documentary by Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer, will be shown (location to be announced). Rustin was an acquaintance of King but remained in the background of the civil rights movement because he was openly gay. The film was an official selection of the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.

During the weekends of Jan. 18-20 and Jan. 25-26, the Black Community Services Center will hold service learning projects.

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By Bronwyn Barnett