20th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration - 2007

Schedule of Events & Program Details

The University of New England invites students, faculty, staff and the greater community to join us in a weeklong series of events January 24-31 to honor and celebrate the life and times of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and to carry on his quest for social justice and equality in the world today.  See press release for events by dates.

Keynote Speakers:

Professor Anouar Majid, UNE English Department Chair will deliver a speech on Wednesday, January 24 at noon in the Multipurpose Rooms, Campus Center on the Biddeford Campus.  The topic of his speech will be “Crescent of Liberty: Islam & the African-American Struggle for Justice.”

Anouar MajidA few days before ground was broken in Washington D.C. for Martin Luther King’s memorial, another groundbreaking event had taken place a week or so earlier when Keith Ellison, an African-American Muslim was elected in Minneapolis to the U.S. House of Representatives. Ellison’s victory capped a centuries-old legacy of Islamic resistance to slavery, oppression, and discrimination, not only in the United States, but also across the Americas. Islam in the African-American experience has mostly been associated with charismatic leaders like Malcolm X and the controversial Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, but these two men are part of a long tradition that began practically with the European conquest of the New World. At a time when the question of Islam occupies center stage in national and global affairs, and Islam appears alien to the U.S. Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage, Anouar Majid’s lecture will show that Islam is, in fact, indigenous to the United States and is a significant precursor to the Civil Rights movement and the struggle for social justice.

Anouar Majid is, according to Cornel West in Democracy Matters, one of a few “towering Islamic intellectuals,” a leading figure in examining the place of religion and Islam in postcolonial theory and the culture of globalization. He is the author of the critically acclaimed books, Unveiling Traditions (Duke University Press) and Freedom and Orthodoxy (Stanford University Press). His new book, Saints in Peril:  Islam and America in the Shadow of Globalization, is scheduled to be a major release from the University of Minnesota Press in Fall 2007. Majid is also a novelist, the author of Si Yussef, and co-founder and editor of Tingis, the first Moroccan-American magazine of ideas and culture. Professor Majid is the founding chair of the Department of English at the University of New England.

Dr. Charles Vert Willie, a sociologist and educator at Harvard University, human rights activist, and former classmate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Morehouse College, will deliver two speeches for UNE and community.

  • His first speech on the history and significance of the “Montgomery Bus Boycott” will be held on Tuesday, January 30 from 4-5 p.m. in the Multipurpose Rooms, Campus Center on the Biddeford Campus. 
  • Dr. Willie will also deliver the keynote address on the Westbrook College Campus on Wednesday, January 31 from 12-1 p.m. in the Ludcke Auditorium. The topic of the speech will be on the “Political Thoughts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”  The speech will be followed by a luncheon and musical performance by the Silver Leaf Gospel Singers, also in Ludcke.

Charles WillieDr.Willie is the Charles William Eliot Professor of Education Emeritus, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University.  He graduated from Morehouse College in 1948 (where he was a classmate of Martin Luther King, Jr.), and studied for a Master of Arts degree at Atlanta University.  The Maxwell School of Syracuse University awarded him a Ph.D. degree in sociology in 1957.  Charles Willie describes himself as an applied sociologist who is concerned with solving social problems.  His interests in teaching, research, and public policy matters focus on elementary, secondary and higher education, race and ethnic relations, family affairs, public health, and community organizations.  He has fulfilled these interests during the course of his career by serving on the faculties of a school of arts and sciences, a school of education, two medical schools, and a theological seminary.  In the 1960s, he participated as director of research in a delinquency-prevention program with Washington Action for Youth in the District of Columbia, sponsored by the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime.  In the 1970s, he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to serve on the President’s Commission on Mental Health, and in the 1980s and 1990s, he served as a consultant, expert witness, and master in several school desegregation court cases.  He and his colleague, Michael Alves, developed a new and unique plan for school desegregation called Controlled Choice.

A human rights activist, Charles Willie was a founding member of the Human Rights Council in Concord, Massachusetts, former chair of the Board of Directors of the Greeley Foundation for Peace and Justice, and former chair of the Board of Trustees of the Judge Baker Children’s Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

Charles Willie is a member of the Episcopal Church in the United State, a former member of its Executive Council and is a past vice president of the House of Deputies, two units of the national governing structure of the church.  Although a lay member of this religious association, he was invited to deliver the ordination sermon at an irregular service in which the first eleven women were ordained as priests in this denomination.  Due largely to activities associated with this event, including the reluctance of some members to acknowledge the priesthood of women, Charles Willie resigned from the church offices to which he had been elected as a form of protest over the way the first women priests were treated.  Ms. Magazine designated him a male hero in its tenth anniversary issue.  He and forty other men were honored for taking courageous action in behalf of women.

For a more complete curriculum vitae email dgaspar@une.edu.


Other MLK, Jr. Events

Silver Leaf Gospel Singers

The Silver Leaf Gospel Singers is a unique a cappella singing ensemble that performs “jubilee”, biblical, spirituals and gospel music.   The group was formed more than 60 years ago by Deacon Randy Green, who grew up singing on the farms and in the cotton fields and churches of segregated Alabama.  Members of the original musical ensemble were active during the Civil Rights Movement and marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Silver Leaf Gospel Singers will leave an lasting impression with their performances on the WCC, January 31 from 1-2 p.m., following Dr. Charles Willie keynote address and featured concert on the UC January 31 with the UNE musical singing group TABS beginning at 8 p.m.

Americans Who Tell The Truth: A Collection of Portraits & Quotes
Paintings by Artist Robert Shetterly on exhibit through February 2 at the UNE Art Gallery, Westbrook Campus. Robert Shetterly will offer a lecture on Wednesday, January 24 from 12-1 in the CHP Lecture Hall, WCC followed by gallery tea and tour from 1-3 p.m. in the UNE art gallery.

"Americans Who Tell the Truth" is a non-partisan series of 68 portraits by Brooksville (Maine) artist Rob Shetterly. His paintings with accompanying quotes/bios of past and current Americans form a remarkable collection of portraits with the intent to remind people of the dignity, courage and importance of some of America's truth tellers and whether or not you agree with a particular subject’s point of view. His goal is to create dialogue that will help each of us figure out which truths we value most as citizens in a democracy.

In addition to the originals of select portraits on display in the UNE Art Gallery, reproductions of portraits and quotes by famous Americans Who Tell The Truth can be located in the cafeteria dining halls on both the Biddeford and Westbrook Campuses.

For more information and thumbnail of all portraits and bios, visit www.americanswhotellthetruth.org


Chansonetta Stanley Emmons 1920’s Southern Plantation Life Photo Exhibit
January 16 –31, ongoing, Campus Center Art Wall
Biddeford Campus

Chansonetta Stanley Emmons is a Maine writer/photographer who created hundreds of master photographs using glass plate negatives between 1890 and her death in 1937. UNE’s Maine Women Writers Collection holds a rare collection of paper prints and glass lantern slides of black and white photographic images taken on plantations in North and South Carolina during the 1920’s. Emmons traveled to Charleston South Carolina and made photographs once in the 1890's and again with her daughter in 1926.

Little recognized in her own day, Chansonetta captured on film a rapidly changing America. Her known work includes black-and-white prints and original hand-colored glass slides, as well as a 1900 scrapbook.  The images reveal the reflective nature of her vision and her interest in memory and the passage of time.

Chansonetta was the sister of the twins, FE and FO Stanley, Kingfield Maine inventors who invented among other devices, the Stanley Steamer automobile. Being both a woman and a photographer at a time when being either placed one somewhat outside the accepted parameters of the art world, Emmons was obliged to be resourceful when it came to fashioning her own career.

Reproductions of select photos will also be on display in the Campus Center and UC Library. The originals will be on display in the WCC Library, and the Maine Women Writers Collection, Westbrook College Campus.


Campus Civility Workshop
Workshop Monday, January 29 from 6-9 pm.  Location TBD
It has been shown that hate speech precedes violence, and that interrupting hate speech is a significant factor in preventing violence.  The Campus Civility Project aims to create a safe climate on campus by teaching practical skills for interrupting hate speech.  Workshop training was designed by the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence in Portland, and will be facilitated by UNE staff member Greg Shambarger.

Days of Service
January 24-31
Volunteering to serve, we honor Dr. King’s legacy of service to others, joining with citizens from all walks of life, backgrounds and beliefs to meet our community’s most basic needs. Often, a single day of service can grow into an ongoing habit of service to one’s community.

On January 24-25, UNE will again sponsor volunteer readers through MLK, Jr. Read In at local after-school programs. Each child read to will keep a Scholastic Book of their choice through the generous support of Volunteers of America Northern New England Scholastic Book program. UNE volunteers may also sign up to serve the youth at Preble Street in Portland through one of many opportunities available January 24 – 31. For more information on how YOU can join in, click on the links above or contact jmeserve@une.edu for this and other service opportunities available during our Days of Service.

 

Speakers
Multicultural Services provides speakers and opportunities for conversation on a myriad of issues. Got an idea for another speaker? Contact Multicultural Services at 207-602-2461.

   
       

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