MLK Lecture and Awards Ceremony
The MLK Jr. Lecture and Awards Ceremony is the largest event of the Week of Celebration. It includes performances and entertainment by various student organizations and features a nationally recognized keynote speaker. Previous keynote speakers include journalist Attorney Ben Crump, Soledad O’Brien, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former NAACP President/activist Benjamin Jealous, professor/author/radio host Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, social activist/author/co-creator of Black Lives Matter Patrisse Cullors, and many more since its inception over 40 years ago.
The Lecture and Awards Ceremony will also include a keynote address by Michelle Alexander, the presentation of the MLK Jr. Scholarship, the Harvey Beech Scholarship, and the MLK Jr. Unsung Hero awards. This year’s event will take place on Thursday, January 18, 2024 at 6pm on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill (Memorial Hall). The event is free and open to the public.
2024 Keynote Speaker
Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander’s acclaimed best-seller, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness released a special 10th anniversary edition in January 2020. Her celebrated book peels back the curtain on systemic racism in the American prison system, which the New York Review of Books described as “striking in the intelligence of her ideas, her powers of summary, and the force of her writing.” With equal force and candor on stage, she takes a hard look at racial injustice in the modern legal system to reveal how mass incarceration has come to replace segregation.
In her acclaimed best-seller, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle peels back the curtain on systemic racism in the American prison system, which the New York Review of Books described as “striking in the intelligence of her ideas, her powers of summary, and the force of her writing.” With equal force and candor on stage, she breaks the silence about racial injustice in the modern legal system to reveal how mass incarceration has come to replace segregation.
Michelle, a legal scholar, social justice advocate, columnist at The New York Times and visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary, explores the myths surrounding our criminal justice system from a racial and ethical standpoint, and offers solutions for combating this epidemic. Delivering an emphatic wake-up call from the “colorblind slumber” that our country has fallen under, she leaves audiences with a new perspective on the challenges facing the civil rights community and a rousing call-to-action for a multi-racial, multi-ethnic human rights movement for justice in America.