Calendar of Events

Live video of this event will be streamed at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/news

*Open to the Public

Location: Langford Auditorium (Google map of this location)

Civil rights leader and former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond will deliver the keynote address at a 4:30 p.m. event at Vanderbilt University commemorating the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, Jan. 17.

Born in Nashville, Bond is an activist, writer, teacher and lecturer who helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta during the early 1960s. He was the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and served 20 years in the Georgia General Assembly. He was chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, from 1998 until early 2010. He currently is a distinguished adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and a professor of history at the University of Virginia.      

*The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Vanderbilt student tickets are now available. General admission tickets for faculty, staff and the general public will be available beginning Tuesday, Dec. 28. Tickets can be picked up at the Sarratt Box Office in Sarratt Student Center. Vanderbilt students, faculty and staff must show Vanderbilt ID to pick up tickets.
 
Sarratt Box Office’s regular hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week. The box office will begin its holiday hours on Saturday, Dec. 18. For more information, visit http://www.vanderbilt.edu/sarratt/hours.php or call 615-343-3361.
 
The event featuring Bond opens with performances by Vanderbilt student groups Voices of Praise, Victory A Cappella and Jeremiah Generation, and winners of an earlier MLK Essay and Oratorical Contest for local middle and high school students will read their winning essays. Bond will begin his keynote address at 5 p.m. A reception for attendees will follow the event.

For more information on Vanderbilt's MLK Day celebration, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/mlk.