Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr

January 18, 2016

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Today we celebrate and honor Martin Luther King Jr. for his dedication and sacrifice during the American Civil Rights Movement. Tomorrow would have been his eighty-seventh birthday. 

 

 

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was a Baptist minister and social activist who played a key role in the American Civil Rights Movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. Inspired by advocates of nonviolence such as Mahatma Gandhi, King sought equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged, and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. He was the driving force behind watershed events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington, which helped bring about such landmark legislation as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and is remembered each year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a U.S. federal holiday since 1986. --www.history.com  Learn more. 

 

February is Black History Month and to commemorate this historic month we are hosting Mark McCormick, Executive Director of The Kansas African American Museum (TKAAM), for Coffee with the Curator on February 18.

Recently, McCormick and a team of professors and students published a photo history of African Americans in Wichita, tracing the presence of black residents from the city’s founding all the way to the election of the city’s first black mayor. Other authors of the book include Dr. Robert Weems, Dr. Jay Price, Dr. Gretchen Eick, Carole Branda, Abril Marshall, and Mark Strohminger.

For more information on TKAAM, please visit their website. To learn more about the educational programs at the Museum, please visit our website or call us at 316.263.1311.