Community invited to annual MLK Celebration Week activities at Northwest

Northwest Missouri State University will commemorate the work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. with its annual Celebration Week, beginning Monday, January 16.

“Dr. King was and is a very influential figure in our history,” Dr. Justin Mallett, the assistant vice president of diversity and inclusion at Northwest, said. “It is important for all of us to come together to share in the vision that Dr. King had for this entire country.”

In conjunction with the national observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, all are invited to the university’s annual Peace Lunch at 11:30 am in the JW Jones Student Union Boardroom. The program will feature a performance by the Kansas City Boys and Girls Choir and a keynote address by Northwest alumna Kimberly Massey Heslop.

Prior to the Peace Lunch, Mallett will present the state of diversity and inclusion at Northwest at 10 am in the boardroom.

“People should attend the events during Martin Luther King Jr. week to further learn and grow for themselves,” Mallett said. “They will get not only an educational perspective but an opportunity to interact with people from different identities, which is something that just doesn’t come from watching television or reading the newspaper.”

Although Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929, his birthday has been observed as a national holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on the third Monday of each January since 1986.

In observance of the holiday, Northwest will not have classes Monday, January 16, and all university offices are closed.

King’s effort to lead the American civil rights movement during the 1950s and ’60s included the 1963 March on Washington. There, he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, which dramatically raised public consciousness about civil rights and established King as a world figure. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, in Memphis Tennessee.