Nazareth College 2019 MLK Day Commemoration, Monday, Jan. 21

CHANGE: The keynote address will now be delivered by Sr. Barbara Lum, a Naz alum and nurse who worked the emergency room in Selma, AL on Bloody Sunday in 1965

Rochester, NY (01/18/2019) — The Other America is the theme of the 2019 Nazareth College celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The College's annual commemoration takes place on Monday, January 21, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Arts Center's Callahan Theater. Classes are suspended for all students and staff offices are closed so all have the ability to attend. It is open to the public. Nazareth is located at 4245 East Ave., Rochester, N.Y., 14618. MEDIA NOTE: mult box is available to plug into at the back of the theater by the sound booth.

This theme, The Other America, is from the title of a speech delivered by King on April 14, 1967 at Stanford University. In this speech, Dr. King addresses race, poverty and economic justice. His words continue to be relevant in our world today.

The keynote address will be given by Sister Barbara Lum, SSJ. She graduated from Nazareth College in 1958 with a bachelor's degree in nursing. She was assigned to Good Samaritan Hospital and the School of Practical Nursing in Selma, Alabama from 1959 to 1968. She cared for civil rights activist Jimmy Lee Jackson and staffed the emergency room on Bloody Sunday (March 7, 1965) where she and others cared for the demonstrators injured while attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their way to the Alabama State Capital to demand voting rights.

**Original speaker Dr. Laurence Thomas, professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University and author of Vessels of Evil, American Slavery and the Holocaust is now unable to attend, and his evening lecture is cancelled.**

The commemoration will feature the performances of the student recipients of the 2019 MLK Visual and Performing Arts Awards:

Visual Arts: Norah Al-Qahtani, who painted a piece titled Monday Night: ACPRA

Theatre/Dance: Ayana Seay-Ross, who choreographed an original step dance

Music: Jah-Luv Guy, who composed an original song titled Growin in da Hood

The event will also include closing songs performed by New York's African American Women's Gospel Choir AKOMA.