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MSU Lecture to Feature Martin Luther King III

MSU Lecture to Feature Martin Luther King III
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By West Kentucky Star Staff
Nov. 07, 2015 | MURRAY, KY
By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 07, 2015 | 06:17 PM | MURRAY, KY
Murray State University will welcome Martin Luther King III to give the 2016 Presidential Lecture on February 8 at 8 pm in the historic Lovett Auditorium.  

“We’re pleased to host this annual event for the Murray State campus and our greater community. We share Mr. King’s commitment to social justice and the educational development of future generations,” Murray State President Robert Davies said. “This event will be the perfect capstone to our 60th anniversary celebration of desegregation on our campus.”  

King will be giving a 45-minute presentation entitled “Continuing the Legacy: The Civil Rights Struggles of the 21st Century” followed by a 30-minute question-and-answer session. Sponsored by the Murray State Student Government Association, the President’s Office and the MSU Foundation, the event is free and open to the public.  

Clinton Combs, president of the Murray State Student Government Association, was excited to point out that this visit couldn’t have come at a better time for the University. The year 2016 holds the 60th anniversary of Murray State’s desegregation as well as the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Kentucky Civil Rights Act.  

“This is an incredible opportunity for the students of Murray State. The King family has such prominence, and it’ll be great to be able to showcase all they’ve done. Everyone recognizes the name, and it’ll be a wonderful thing for people to be able to hear about those times from someone who has experienced them firsthand outside of a classroom or textbook. We tend to forget about all the efforts put forth to get us where we are today,” said Combs.  

The oldest son of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King, he graduated from his father’s alma mater, Morehouse College, with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1979. In 1986, he was elected as an at-large representative of Fulton County, Ga., and has continued in his father’s footsteps with his dedication to creating and implementing strategic nonviolent action to rid the world of social, political and economic injustice.  

King is ardently committed to the personal and educational development of youth and has implemented several programs such as the King Summer Intern Program, Hoops for Health and A Call to Manhood — events designed through the years to support and nurture young people.   His fight for justice has consisted of speaking to the moral and political dilemmas of Haiti, Nigeria, Australia, and Sierra Leone throughout the 1990s. He has also protested divides in the technological field due to bias and spoken to the United Nations for those challenged by AIDS.  

Through King’s Stop the Killing-End Violence campaign, a successful buy-back program was able to collect 10,000 weapons across the United States. With his tenure as President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he continued in his mission for peace by convening police brutality and racial profiling hearings to lead to the passage of anti-racial profiling resolutions in several states.  

The year 2003 brought his co-sponsorship of the 40th anniversary of the historic March on Washington, in which human rights organizations from across the country participated. The nonprofit organization founded by King, Realizing the Dream Inc., eventually was merged with The King Center in 2010 to help provide nonviolence education workshops in Bosnia, Herzegovina, India, Israel, Kenya, Sri Lanka and the United States.  

When speaking on behalf of the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, King addressed that the country was suffering from a poor health care system, education system, housing market and justice system. “We all have to roll up our sleeves and work to ensure that the dream he shared can be fulfilled,” he said. In January 2009, he joined with President Obama in northeast Washington to help make refurbishments to the Sasha Bruce Youth work shelter for homeless teens in order to encourage community service on the King holiday.  

King also received the Ramakrishna Bajaj Memorial Global Award at the 26th Anniversary Global Awards of the Priyadarshni Academy in Mumbai, India, on Sept. 19, 2010, for his outstanding contributions to the promotion of human rights.  

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