Murray State University welcomes Martin Luther King III for the 2016 Presidential Lecture Series tonight.
The event is tonight (February 8) at 8 p.m. in Lovett Auditorium on Murray State's campus. It is free to the public.
MSU President Dr. Bob Davies says the event will be a capstone to the university’s 60th anniversary celebration of desegregation on campus.
“We’re pleased to host this annual event for the Murray State campus and our greater community," said Davies. "We share Mr. King’s commitment to social justice and the educational development of future generations."
King, the oldest son of the historic civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, will give a presentation called “Continuing the Legacy: The Civil Rights Struggles of the 21st Century."
The event is sponsored by the Murray State Student Government Association, the President’s Office and the MSU Foundation.
Previous MSU Presidential Lecturers have included Chuck Todd, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bill Nye, James Carville and Mary Matalin, Ben Stein, Benazir Bhutto, Spike Lee, Maya Angelou, F. W. de Klerk and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Brief Bio on Martin Luther King, III
King III graduated from his father's alma mater Morehouse College in 1979. Since then, he has worked with domestic and international human rights and nonviolence organizations, including the King Summer Intern Program, Hoops for Health and A Call to Manhood.
In 1986, he was elected a representative at-large of Fulton County, GA.
In the 1990s, he spoke out on the moral and political dillmemas of Haiti, Nigeria, Australia and Sierra Leone and protested to the United nations on behalf of those challenged by AIDS.
King's Stop the Killing/End Violence campaign was able to collect 10,000 weapons across the United States and with his tenure as President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference he convened hearings on police brutality to lead to passage of anti-racial profiling resolutions in several states.
In 2003, he co-sponsored the 40th anniversary of the historic March on Washington, in which human rights organizations from across the country participated.
In 2008, King spoke on behalf of then-Senator Barack Obama at the democratic presidential nomination.
In 2010, his nonprofit organization Realizing the Dream, Inc. was merged with The King Center to help provide nonviolence education workshops in Bosnia, Herzegovina, India, Israel, Kenya, Sri Lanka and the U.S.
King also received the Ramakrishna Bajaj Memorial Global Award at the 26th Anniversary Global Awards of the Priyadarshni Academy in Mumbai, India, on Sept. 19, 2010, for his outstanding contributions to the promotion of human rights.
Note: this is an updated story
