For Immediate Release — Friday, Jan. 13, 2006
Contact:
Mary E. McCrank
Media Relations Officer
(585) 245-5516
SUNY Geneseo to celebrate life of Martin Luther
King Jr.
Civil rights pioneer Dorothy Cotton will speak Jan.
19
GENESEO, N.Y. — The State
University of New York at Geneseo will honor the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
with a variety of events in January. All events are free and open to the
public.
The highlight of this year's celebration
will be a keynote speech by Dorothy Cotton at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19, in the
MacVittie College Union Ballroom. Cotton was the education director for the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) from 1960-1968, working closely
with King and other civil rights leaders. Cotton served on his executive staff
and was part of his entourage to Norway, where he received the Nobel Prize for
Peace.
In her role with the SCLC, Cotton directed the Citizenship
Education Program, which was designed to train and empower disenfranchised
citizens while developing local leadership in the deep South and promoting
nonviolent social change. Later, Cotton served as the vice president for field
operations for the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change
in Atlanta, Ga., where she was a leader and senior trainer for the center in
areas of nonviolence and empowerment for leadership.
Under the President Carter Administration, Cotton served as
the southeastern regional director of ACTION, the federal government's agency
for volunteer programs from 1978 to 1981. From 1982 to 1991, Cotton was the
director of student activities at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
Cotton now works as a consultant, providing inspiration and
guidance on a range of topics, including multiculturalism and diversity, human
relations, race relations, nonviolent change, women's issues, and the paths to
personal and spiritual growth.
Cotton often uses the "Songs of the Movement" to help her
tell the story of America's struggle for civil rights. She has traveled
extensively throughout the world, including visits to the former Soviet Union,
the People's Republic of China, Switzerland, Africa, Vietnam and Europe, to
participate in international workshops and discussions on a broad range of
current social and humanitarian issues.
Other Martin Luther King Jr.
celebration events at SUNY Geneseo will include:
Thursday, Jan. 26
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award
Competition Reception
4 p.m.
MacVittie College Union Ballroom
Sponsored by the Office of
Multicultural Affairs, Center for Community, Residence Life, the Office of the
Provost, and the Division of Student and Campus Life.
Thursday, Jan. 26
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award
Competition Reception
5:30 p.m.
MacVittie College Union Ballroom
A 50-minute episode from the "Eyes on the Prize" documentary titled "The Promised Land" will be shown. Emilye Crosby,
associate professor of history at SUNY Geneseo, will lead a discussion after
the screening.
Tuesday, Jan. 31
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dramatic Readings
4 p.m.
Sturges Auditorium
Emilye Crosby, associate professor
of history at SUNY Geneseo, will introduce the readings. Students will perform
excerpts of speeches and writings by King and other activists from the
modern civil rights movement, including Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer,
Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, Diane Nash,
Chuck McDew, Judy Richardson and James Lawson.
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